[guitar playing]
[audience cheering]
Hey!!
♪ Last week, I attended a family affair ♪
♪ And a few remarked Upon my recent growth of facial hair ♪
♪ "You look just like your father did With that beard," someone said ♪
♪ I answered back, "I am him ♪
♪ Even though my old man's dead" ♪
♪ I didn't want to be him ♪
♪ Well, at first I did ♪
♪ And I loved and looked up to him As a little kid ♪
♪ He sent me to his old school I was a numeral with his name ♪
♪ And he gave me this gold signet ring And he wore one just the same ♪
♪ I guess that I believed him ♪
♪ Probably it was true ♪
♪ When he told me I was just like him ♪
♪ That's what some fathers do ♪
♪ But a father's always older And my dad was rather tall ♪
♪ Who says size doesn't matter? ♪
♪ He was big and I was small ♪
♪ I needed to be big enough ♪
♪ To be someone someday ♪
♪ And I learned I had to beat him ♪
♪ That was the only way ♪
♪ I learned I had to fight him ♪
♪ My own flesh, blood, bone, and kin But I felt I was just like him ♪
♪ Can a man's son be his twin? ♪
♪ First we fought for my mother ♪
♪ That afforded little joy ♪
♪ When he left, she was heartbroken ♪
♪ I was still their little boy ♪
♪ But I started to get bigger ♪
♪ And to win the ugly game ♪
♪ Well, I made a little money ♪
♪ And I got a bit of fame ♪
♪ And I saw how this could wound him ♪
♪ Yeah, this could do the trick ♪
♪ And if I made it big enough I could kill him off quick ♪
♪ But how can you murder someone in a way that they don't die? ♪
♪ I didn't want to kill him ♪
♪ That would be suicide ♪
♪ I got frightened and I backed off ♪
♪ I let up I was through ♪
♪ And in the end, he did himself in ♪
♪ Usually that's what we do ♪
♪ I'm alive and he is dead ♪
♪ And neither of us won ♪
♪ It's spoiled for the victor ♪
♪ Once the vanquishing is done ♪
♪ A man becomes immortal ♪
♪ Through his daughter or his son ♪
♪ And when he fears his legacy ♪
♪ A man can come undone ♪
♪ The beard is a reminder ♪
♪ I'm a living part of him ♪
♪ Although my father's dead and gone ♪
♪ I'm his surviving twin ♪
♪ Although the old man's dead and gone ♪
♪ I'm his surviving twin ♪
Hey!
Welcome to Surviving Twin.
That was the title track.
It's a posthumous collaboration, in which I'm gonna combine and connect
some of my songs with the writing of my late father,
the esteemed Life magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright Junior.
He wrote under the byline of Loudon Wainwright,
and his column, "The View From Here," appeared in Life magazine
throughout the 1960s and '70s and '80s
when Life was ubiquitous on every coffee table in America,
way back when there were coffee tables.
My dad wrote about the big stories of his day,
the Vietnam War, the Project Mercury astronauts,
he interviewed Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy
and Marilyn Monroe and...
the Maharishi.
But he also wrote about his personal life,
including his feelings about his own father,
and they were complicated feelings.
My dad's father died when my dad was just 17.
So my dad never got to say, "Fuck you, Dad!"
It's so important, kids.
So his father was a ghost figure for him
and that's reflected a little bit in this first piece I'm going to do
that my dad wrote, for you.
Let's have the card.
So when you see that card--
Not that particular... you know, when a card comes up,
that's my father talking to you.
Okay, and now the card's up.
This is my father talking to you about his father.
If I remain still
if I am alone and silent long enough to hear the sound of my own blood
or breathing or digestion above the rustling of leaves
and the whir of the refrigerator...
my father is likely to turn up.
He just arrives,
unbidden in the long-running film of my thoughts
like Hitchcock in his pictures.
And he looks for all these 40-plus years of disembodiment,
much like himself, big and sandy-haired with freckles on the backs of his hands,
perhaps a bit more diffident in the way he holds himself than I remember.
Doesn't stay long.
As far as I can tell, his visits have no message.
Yet even though years of therapy have led me to make the dark whistling claim
that he's finally dead and gone...
my father...
who died when I was 17...
continues to be
my principal ghost...
a lifelong éminence grise.
And only my own end...
will finish it.
♪ I've seen the family photos ♪
♪ And the man's a mystery ♪
♪ Died in 1942 at the age of 43 ♪
♪ My grandmother was his widow ♪
♪ And my father was his son ♪
♪ Whoa, I know next to nothing ♪
♪ Of the first Loudon ♪
♪ They say he was an SOB ♪
♪ Who liked to smoke and drink ♪
♪ In the photos, he looks handsome ♪
♪ "Trapped" is what I think ♪
♪ And there's one of him in uniform It must be World War One ♪
♪ They say he was an expert sailor ♪
♪ And could handle a shotgun ♪
♪ In a wedding portrait ♪
♪ Posing with his young bride ♪
♪ His right hand hidden by her bouquet ♪
♪ His left hanging at his side ♪
♪ Closed in a kind of half-fist ♪
♪ Unsure what he'd just done ♪
♪ Facing his short future ♪
♪ Like he could hit someone ♪
♪ It was elbows off the table ♪
♪ Before the meal begun ♪
♪ But it's his hands I recognized ♪
♪ He gave them to his son ♪
♪ Whose own hands held and touched me Ruffled up my hair ♪
♪ I recognized that half-fist ♪
♪ Oh, I'd know it anywhere ♪
♪ Later on in the late 30s He began to go to seed ♪
♪ In the photos, he looks loaded The observant eye will heed ♪
♪ Mugging for the camera ♪
♪ Having a little fun ♪
♪ Cigarette in one hand ♪
♪ And a drink in the other one ♪
♪ Yes, I know a little something About the first Loudon ♪
♪ My grandmother was his widow ♪
♪ My father was his son ♪
♪ Tell me, what are we afraid of? ♪
♪ Why do we resist? ♪
♪ I spread my hands and flex my fingers ♪
♪ Open and close my fist ♪
♪ I spread my hands and flex my fingers ♪
♪ Open and close my fist ♪
At last I am properly dressed.
Well, that is on some occasions.
I'll be properly dressed because any fool knows
a man can't wear his new English suit every day.
But on the good days when the suit has been well brushed
and its fibers adequately rested after a decent period in the closet,
I will wear it with pride in the confidence that I fit all over.
Ah, of course, all this has probably happened too late.
A man should really have his first London tailored suit in his speedy years,
sometime in his early James Bond period.
He should certainly have more than one.
Still, if a single Savile Row suit does not make a new man,
it has at least made this one feel splendidly redecorated.
A miracle of weskit and good gray worsted.
When I choose it
over the less distinguished American models on my rack,
I can be sure that its $170 elegance
covers up a substantial secret.
Much of my feeling about the suit
undoubtedly comes from the experience of buying it.
It was the most lingering pleasurable purchase I have ever made.
I will remember it long after the trousers are out at the knees.
During the five meetings I had with my tailor over a period of two months,
the conversation was delightfully single-purposed.
We talked about my requirements,
my measurements,
my appearance.
We seemed always to be progressing toward a triumph
that would be totally mine.
I selected my tailor because he was nice about a button.
With a friend, I'd been looking at suit materials in several London shops,
and we finally wound up in a small establishment
where the friend had bought a suit earlier.
[bell rings]
He introduced me to the tailor,
a short gentleman named Mr. Perry
who was dressed in a double breasted black weskit and striped trousers.
A tape measure was draped around his neck.
Mr. Perry was entirely courteous,
but as he showed us bolts of cloth...
he kept glancing in the direction...
of my middle.
At first, I thought he might be registering
some sort of understated astonishment at the cut of my American ready-made suit,
and then I thought he might be wondering about the problem...
of dealing with my shape.
I was beginning to not like Mr. Perry...
when he spoke.
"I think you have a bit of a problem there, sir," Mr. Perry began.
"That is if you don't mind my saying so, sir."
He approached and delicately touched the center button on my coat.
"The button, sir.
I doubt if it will last out the day.
We'll have it tied down properly for you in a moment."
Ah. I felt relieved, ridiculously grateful,
and decided that a man so discerning about buttons
would have to be marvelous about suits.
We selected the material rather quickly
when I kept returning to a swatch of light colored tweed, said I liked it.
Mr. Perry said...
"Well, it's very nice.
But if I may say so, sir,
I believe you'd look a bit massive in it."
Appalled at the thought of being any more massive than necessary,
I selected a darkish gray with a very faint stripe.
"Now, that's a cloth that suits you, sir," Mr. Perry said firmly.
"It's not flashy, it's not pretentious.
It makes up smart, we should get a good result."
The matter was settled.
Until the measuring session that followed,
I'd never realized how many crucial dimensions I have.
From the nape of the neck to the armpit, 11 inches.
From the center of the back to the elbow, 22 inches.
From the inside of the leg, known in London as the fork,
to the seam of the shoe, 32 and 3/4 inches.
The circumference at the trouser seat, breathtaking!
There are 25 vital measurements,
and Mr. Perry took them all, calling them out like depth soundings
to an assistant, who wrote them down on a large pad.
These were necessary to cut the pattern, Mr. Perry advised me,
and they would then be placed...
in the company files.
How agreeable to reflect that this catalog of specifics
would be kept in a safe place.
Weeks elapsed before I returned to London and Mr. Perry.
[bell rings]
Looking at my new suit for the first time...
I felt much the same horror I'd felt at the first sight of my eldest son.
He'd looked very raw to me through the nursery window
and so did the suit.
The jacket scarred with basting thread,
the pockets missing or sewn shut.
Mr. Perry did not reassure me entirely
when he found some fault with the shoulder of the jacket,
simply clipped some threads
and removed one complete sleeve.
In the wreckage, we agreed and disagreed, politely, about details.
Mr. Perry persuaded me that the jacket should have more shape at the waist
so the suit would not be like an American suit.
"Reasonably tidy, but lacking in character."
I persuaded him that the trousers should be fitted to accommodate a belt
and not suspenders.
Oh, Mr. Perry did not really like that at all.
But he cheered up considerably when we settled on the weskit.
It would depart somewhat
from the straight conservatism of the rest of the suit
and have little lapels... of its own.
"The step collar vest is coming into fashion, sir,"
Mr. Perry said approvingly.
"I think we're quite right to just go ahead and take the chance."
Flushed with risk-taking...
I proposed two side vents in the jacket.
Ah!
But Mr. Perry coolly checked me.
[bell rings]
At the next session, the suit was almost finished
and Mr. Perry offered some guidance for the future.
"I suggest you wear it in regular rotation with your other suits, sir.
Once a week would be about right.
If you give it fair rest and treatment between times,
it should last five years or more.
Brush it regularly, sponge it a bit if need be,
but don't have it dry-cleaned
unless there's been some sort of an accident."
I tried not to think of the accidents that regularly befall my suits.
"And let me remind you, sir," he finished,
"look after it for moths."
[bell rings]
The next meeting was our last, and much as I wanted the finished suit,
I was reluctant to stop buying it.
Mr. Perry held each trouser leg clear of the floor
as I put on the pants.
Ah.
[inhales deeply]
[groaning]
The lapels on the weskit...
magnificent.
The jacket...
Ah! The jacket fit perfectly across the shoulders!
I gazed appreciatively at myself in mirrored quadruplicate.
Mr. Perry smiled slightly.
"I don't think we'll find the belt bothers at all, sir.
You're well turned out."
When I paid Mr. Perry, I asked him if there'd been any...
special problems in making the suit for me.
"Oh, no, sir," he began.
"Some might say tailoring is the art of disguising the man,
but it's only if a man has a bad appearance
that there are any problems.
If he has a good figure...
we come up trumps."
I felt he hadn't quite answered my question.
And I repeated it.
"Well, the only thing, I don't know if I should mention it..."
I urged him on.
"Well, sir, you have rather a long body,
and that's the thing we had to try to minimize.
We had to lengthen your legs, so to speak,
and shorten your body.
Nothing serious, really, and it worked out quite well."
Now this was the first time I'd heard of this particular defect in my structure.
I took another look in the mirrors.
Mr. Perry was right.
It was impossible to tell now where my short legs ended
and my long body began!
In a post-operative glow at his sartorial surgery,
I said goodbye to Mr. Perry and set off down the street,
trying to make my strides long enough to keep the secret of my suit.
I gotta tell you, folks,
this is the actual suit.
[applause]
Let's give it up for the actual suit!
1965.
♪ Between the forest and the ocean Lies a lonely strand ♪
♪ The ocean is your mother ♪
♪ The forest fatherland ♪
♪ You are stranded on that empty beach Not knowing where to go ♪
♪ Out to sea or else inland Your whole life, you don't know ♪
♪ In between the earth and sky ♪
♪ There is an atmosphere ♪
♪ Feet on the ground, your head up high But you are stuck ♪
♪ Right here ♪
♪ You're in between your whole life long ♪
♪ What happens when you die? ♪
♪ Down below us, Mother Earth Your father dwells on high ♪
♪ Honor thy father and thy mother ♪
♪ Though they're not the same ♪
♪ And one pits you against the other ♪
♪ It's the cruelest game ♪
♪ You are stuck and you are stranded You must live until you die ♪
♪ At home in forest and in ocean Worship earth and sky ♪
♪ At home in forest and in ocean ♪
♪ Worship earth and sky ♪
♪ I knew your mother ♪
♪ Let me be clear ♪
♪ We were lovers before you got here ♪
♪ So don't forget that I knew her when ♪
♪ Love was the means And you were the end ♪
♪ I still remember somebody Who was amazing ♪
♪ And crazy and someone like you ♪
♪ I fell for your mother ♪
♪ Love made me a fool We were into each other ♪
♪ Till it came off the spool ♪
♪ Folks choose their parents Some Buddhists say ♪
♪ Maybe you picked us And we were your way ♪
♪ In the biblical sense, I knew your mom ♪
♪ Und it wasn't all sturm Und it wasn't all drang ♪
♪ There was some calm ♪
♪ Having a father is the most dangerous game ♪
♪ And when Dad takes a powder ♪
♪ It's always a shame ♪
♪ I knew your mother And your mother knew me ♪
♪ And as long as it lasted ♪
♪ Was how long it could be ♪
♪ Today is your birthday And if truth be told ♪
♪ It has to be said now ♪
♪ We're both a bit older ♪
♪ Yeah, happy birthday But I want to be clear ♪
♪ I loved your mother ♪
♪ That's why you're here ♪
♪ I knew your mother Let me be clear ♪
♪ We two were lovers before you got here ♪
♪ So don't forget that I knew her when ♪
♪ Love was the means And you were the end ♪
♪ I knew your mother ♪
A few years ago, I saw a collection of old home movies
that my father had made in the mid-1930s.
Since he held the camera, he never appeared in the films,
although his long afternoon shadow
occasionally fell across the scenes he shot.
But his presence,
the way he thought about some things and how he felt...
seemed extraordinarily evident.
To make his movie during one bitter winter,
he'd walked out on the frozen bay near our house
and shot a long piece of film looking back toward the land.
What obviously interested him were the shapes the camera lingered on.
Great heaves of broken ice
and pilings of docks wrenched into jagged angles against the sky.
Watching, I was astonished at his selections.
I always thought of him as a completely direct man
with no interest at all in abstractions of any kind.
But here he was on film,
working hard with the camera, trying to find the right framing
for the stark forms he saw.
Now, this was a large insight into my father's being
that I'd missed completely.
The film showed me more than that about him.
In another section, he was photographing me
as I skated near him.
First, I watched the movie with the fascination one usually feels
when he looks at pictures of himself,
especially pictures of a self in child's packaging.
Delighted with my own gay awkwardness on ice...
I suddenly had the sense that the camera
was projecting a clear quality... of love.
The child fell, the camera lurched
as its holder moved in to help,
then steadied as the boy rose smiling.
The camera zoomed in for a close-up,
then drew back and held
as the child bent-ankled in one crude circle... after another.
Decades later,
the photographer's tenderness quite overwhelmed his subject.
Even if we're late...
we can still reach out for fathers...
and find good moments for ourselves in what they left behind.
[Loudon over PA] I drove down to Baltimore recently
and seeing an exit for Middletown,
I pulled or perhaps was pulled off Interstate 95.
Driving the rental car through the still sleepy little Delaware town,
I was amazed to see the old movie theater and the barber shop were still standing,
much less in operation.
Now I nose the Caprice towards St. Andrews.
My father had sent me away to the then all-boys boarding school in 1961.
It was his alma mater, his own father had exiled him there in 1938.
It hadn't been a happy experience for either of us,
and I have managed to stay away from the place for decades.
But suddenly,
I'm here again.
Aside from the new science building and the even newer field house,
neither of which were built thanks to any contribution from me,
the campus looks as it did 50 years ago.
I park, get out of the car, and walk into the main building.
I feel slightly furtive, like a man slipping back into a room
to retrieve a wristwatch he's left on a bedside table,
not sure if the woman in the bed is sleeping or pretending.
This feels like running away in reverse.
It's summer, so aside from a custodian or two, the place is empty.
I climb some stairs heading to what was once the third form bathroom.
It's still there.
Pushing open the heavy swinging door,
I belly up to a familiar-looking urinal.
I pee, marking this old territory.
In 1961, after lights,
I sat cross-legged and bathrobed
on the black and white tiled floor of this can,
and while finishing a paper or cramming for some exam,
suddenly would look up, startled and amazed
by the loud cutting blare of the night train's horn.
It was a sound expressing everything that was beyond the school,
the whole empty world that was waiting for me.
Now I'm in the basement, which to this day,
still houses the tuck shop,
school store, and school bank.
I'm searching the darkly stained pine wood paneling
for somewhere among those hundreds of crudely carved,
scratched and branded sets of initials and dates,
there should be LSW3 '65
or LSW Junior '42.
But I can't find us.
Maybe we were never here.
I'm in the auditorium now,
remembering Saturday nights a half-century ago.
Watching the weekly movie,
I was Wainwright then, always insisting on sitting alone,
away from my chatty goofball friends,
so as to concentrate on the flick, hunkered down in the dark,
watching Forbidden Games,
Odd Man Out,
Mr. Hulot's Holiday,
and so appropriate for a boys boarding school,
The Great Escape.
Now I'm standing inside the old gym,
scanning the thick, ugly plaster walls.
The school's team pictures hang there in honor and remembrance.
I find my varsity football team picture. I'm number 22,
left half-back, bad skin.
Then 30 feet away, there's a picture of my father,
standing on the gym steps in 1942
with his varsity baseball team.
He and I, father and son
are connected by our same sad expressions.
We're glum young men, unhappy Loudons.
I go outside and stand in the center of the football field,
recalling the horrific sight
of Andy McNair's knee being driven the wrong way
by the vicious clip he received in the 1964 Tatnall game.
Then I experienced the memory of my father
seated in the stands watching me play.
Now he's up and cheering.
I've got the ball.
Then I imagine him on that same field in 1940
or maybe '41, the next-to-no shoulder pads,
shod and mud-caked high-top cleats,
wearing an ancient face-guardless helmet
searching those same stands for his own father.
Hey, you want to do a sing-along?
-[all] Yeah. -Yeah?
You don't sound like you're very enthusiastic.
[cheering]
I'll tell you, if you don't sing along on this, we're doing "Kumbaya."
So, uh...
you decide.
You know, this show is very, um--
There's a lot of father stuff in this show.
Some mother stuff is coming up, don't worry.
Don't worry, you moms out there.
We're gonna do this, this is the sing-along.
I'm gonna teach you the sing-along part, your part.
♪ Being a dad ♪
[all] ♪ Being a dad ♪
That's good. The moms are good, the dads...
The dads, like so many dads, suck!
♪ Being a dad ♪
Let me hear you.
[all] ♪ Being a dad ♪
Now we've got some bottom on that thing.
All right, so I'm gonna start the song.
The sing-along thing is kind of...
You'll know. You'll know.
♪ Being a dad ♪
♪ It isn't so bad ♪
♪ Except that you gotta feed 'em ♪
♪ You gotta shoe 'em and clothe them ♪
♪ And try not to loathe them ♪
♪ Bug 'em and hug 'em and heed 'em ♪
♪ Being a dad ♪
♪ Can sure make you mad ♪
♪ Man, it sure can drive you crazy! ♪
♪ It's as hard as it looks ♪
♪ You gotta read them dumb books ♪
♪ And you end up despising Walt Disney ♪
♪ Being a dad ♪
♪ It starts to get radical ♪
♪ When they turn into teenagers! ♪
♪ You gotta tighten the screws ♪
♪ Enforce the curfews ♪
♪ Confiscate weapons and pagers ♪
Remember pagers?
♪ But a daughter or son ♪
♪ Can be sort of fun ♪
♪ Just as long as they don't defy you ♪
♪ They'll treat you like a king ♪
♪ They'll believe anything ♪
♪ They're easy to frighten and ♪
♪ Lie to ♪
Just like we rehearsed it...
[all] ♪ Being a dad ♪
Come on now, you can do better than that, come on!
♪ Being a dad ♪
Little bit louder!
♪ Being a dad ♪
That's pathetic. One more.
♪ Being a dad ♪
♪ Being a dad can make you feel glad ♪
♪ When you get paper weights And aftershave lotion ♪
♪ Yeah, it feels pretty great ♪
♪ When they graduate ♪
♪ That's when you're choked with emotion ♪
♪ But being a dad takes more than a tad ♪
♪ Of good luck and divine intervention ♪
♪ You need airtight alibis ♪
♪ Foolproof disguises ♪
♪ Desperation's the father of invention ♪
♪ So sometimes you take off ♪
♪ For a few rounds of golf ♪
♪ And you stay away for half of their lifetimes ♪
♪ The result of it all ♪
♪ Is you're captured and hauled off ♪
♪ Before a tribunal for ♪
♪ Dad crimes ♪
Two, three, four...
[all] ♪ Being a dad ♪
Come on, moms!
♪ Being a dad ♪
Pretend I'm Pete Seeger.
♪ Being a dad ♪
Same sex couples.
♪ Being a dad ♪
♪ Being a dad can make you feel sad ♪
♪ Like you're the insignificant other ♪
♪ Yeah, right from the start ♪
♪ They break your heart ♪
♪ In the end, every kid wants his mother ♪
Big finish, everybody goes like this, we go like...
♪ Being a dad ♪
So in January of 1942...
Loudon the first, my grandfather, dies.
And that spring of the same year,
my dad, Loudon Junior, graduates from St. Andrews.
And then, in the summer of 1942,
at the age of 17,
he enlists in the Marine Corps.
And he writes some letters...
to his recently widowed mother...
a couple of which mention Martha Taylor...
who, in 1946, would become my mother.
July 1942.
"Dear Mother, I just got your letter saying you almost burst into tears
when you saw a Marine private on 42nd Street.
If I could only give you the strength, Mother.
You showed your real guts when Daddy went
by making a great effort to carry on with what he had done
because you felt that you had to make a life and a home for you and me,
a new home in place of the old one
that suddenly disintegrated with the departure
of my best friend and father and your man,
the one we both loved above all else.
You have done a splendid job, Mom.
I realize now what a torture your life must have been
since that awful day in January.
Never turn your face to the wall, never despair for me, Mother.
Wherever I am, my heart is always with you,
my thoughts are always with you.
Let the fact that I love and worship you for your splendid courage and patience
be a comfort to you whenever you feel my absence.
Remember that like Big Louds...
I am always with you.
Goodnight, Mommy.
Louds."
September 1942.
"Toots, your picture arrived today
and I am terribly pleased with it.
It really is swell.
You can be sure it's been put in the most prominent position beside my bunk.
There is no doubt in my mind as to who has the prettiest mother in the place.
You're really younger looking than most of the guys' girls.
No, I'm not kidding.
I like the Marine Corps, I have a million and one good pals.
I like California and I'm quite happy,
but I'm so damn mad at this setup I'm in
that I feel like getting plastered or something.
I mean, whoever said, 'War is hell,'
either wasn't using the full extent of his vocabulary
or had never fought the war from the sunny shores of California.
It is, as Dad would have said,
a great big pain in the pardonnez-moi ass.
Ah, nuts to me, I'm griping too much, and I'm sorry."
October 1942.
"Mother...
I'm now listening to "Melancholy Baby" coming in loud and clear over the radio.
Remember those nights driving back from Easthampton
when we'd sing all the way home?
Or coming back from a game at Princeton with Dad giving out
with his special octave-jumping tenor?
Them were the days.
Good night,
and lots of love, Louds."
1943. "I'm in San Diego now, Mom.
It's a dull sailor-crammed town.
I can't get a drop to drink because I'm not 21 and they won't serve me.
I'm gonna write to the new governor, Earl Warren,
and I'm gonna tell him I don't like the liquor laws in his lousy state
and that if he doesn't have them fixed immediately
so that all men in uniform can imbibe,
I'll depart.
If Errol Flynn being accused of the seduction
and statutory rape of two minor girls
is an example of the purity of glorious California,
then why can't I have a beer?
To be truthful,
I long for a little younger female companionship.
Although you realize, Mom, there's nothing I'd rather do than see you.
Love, Loudee."
July, 1945.
"I'm thinking very seriously of bringing Martha home with me next weekend.
Might both get a three-day pass. We could go out to Cedarhurst and swim, etc.
I'm thinking very seriously of getting married.
So I hope you like her and will not start thinking of ways
to make me forget about it.
I didn't mean that exactly the way that it sounded,
but I do feel that you probably think
of the objectionable sides of the relationship before anything else.
I love her a great deal, and I feel...
pretty certain that it's a good thing.
She completely understands my situation.
Don't worry about it, Mother. Love, Louds."
October 1945.
"Mom, Martha is down at Camp Lejeune getting discharged
and won't be home until Saturday.
I miss her like hell, I don't know what to do with myself when she's not here.
The way I feel about her almost seems to be too far inside me
for any appropriate expression.
I never thought I could be this lonely.
She's a sweetheart.
And I love her."
♪ Mother liked her white wine When she was alive ♪
♪ She was desperate to live But her limit was five ♪
♪ Carefully, I'd kiss her ♪
♪ Send her off to bed ♪
♪ We always stuck to white wine We stayed away from red ♪
♪ Always stick to white wine, Stay away from... ♪
♪ Mother liked her white wine She'd have a glass or two ♪
♪ Almost every single night After her day was through ♪
♪ Sancerre, chardonnay, Chablis ♪
♪ Pinot grigio ♪
♪ Just to take the edge off Just to get the glow ♪
♪ You've got to take the edge off If you want to get... ♪
♪ Mother liked her white wine She'd have a glass or three ♪
♪ We'd sit out on the screen porch White winos, Mom and me ♪
♪ We'd talk about her childhood ♪
♪ And recap my career ♪
♪ When we got to my father ♪
♪ That's when I'd switch to beer ♪
♪ When we got to the old man I'd always switch... ♪
♪ Mother liked her white wine ♪
♪ She'd have a glass or four ♪
♪ Each empty bottle a dead soldier ♪
♪ The marriage was the war ♪
♪ When we blurred the edges When we drank a lot ♪
♪ That's when I got nervous When the glow got hot ♪
♪ I always get nervous When the glow gets... ♪
♪ I still like my white wine And I'll have a glass or two ♪
♪ When I'm down, I'll drink some whiskey It's something I shouldn't do ♪
♪ Every now and then I'll take a drop of red ♪
♪ When I'm with a woman ♪
♪ That I want to take to bed ♪
♪ When I'm with a woman That I want to take... ♪
♪ Mother liked her white wine And when she was alive ♪
♪ She was desperate to live ♪
♪ But her limit was five ♪
♪ Carefully, I'd kiss her ♪
♪ Send her off to bed ♪
♪ Thank God we stuck to white wine ♪
♪ And we stayed away from... ♪
♪ Mother liked her white wine ♪
[sighs]
Well, it's always seemed like a zero holiday to me.
Another commercially pumped up occasion to sell greeting cards or neckties.
Long distance phone calls,
41 million on Father's Day.
More on Mother's Day.
Aloud, I profess to find it beneath my notice,
but as it rolls around each June, I find myself wondering
if I'm gonna hear from each of the kids,
and I get ready to sulk...
if someone doesn't phone or write or show up.
I call the roll in my head and tick off tender memories of each.
Looking back, I suppose one of the problems I had with fatherhood
was that I attached a kind of divinity to the role.
Not that I consider myself all-knowing, but I did have this notion
that a really good father...
would have the answers to just about everything
and the power to make all things work out.
I think it's likely my own father, who died a relatively young man,
suffered from the same delusion.
Even when he seemed most confident and implacable,
I would bet he was full of doubt,
that his controlling family style was just a cover-up
for the fear he didn't have much power at all.
Maybe my experience is unusual,
but I can't recall having given a single serious thought
to what it would be like to be a father until I was married
and my first son was on the way.
All my dreams up to then had revolved around escaping boyhood
and its strictures or around sex or around...
learning everything about everything
or being recognized, even acclaimed,
as a full-fledged person with limitless future.
When that first son was born,
I spent all night in the waiting room with another expectant father.
He was about 40.
Almost twice my age then, so was his wife.
They'd been married for many years.
This would be their first too.
He and I talked and drank coffee until dawn
while our wives labored unseen down the hall.
He told me how carefully they had planned for this child,
how many earlier disappointments they'd had.
Their experience was so astonishingly different
and so much more complex than my own,
in which a child seemed to come almost spontaneously out of marriage.
These people really wanted their baby.
We did too, but...
that was a whole other order of things.
Then as we talked on, their doctor came out of the delivery room
and told my new friend that his wife was all right.
After the most awful pause, he added that the baby, a boy,
hadn't made it.
Until right then...
when that calm and kind man...
so ready for fatherhood and so cruelly deprived of it,
put his arm around me and told me he was sure our baby would be okay...
I hadn't realized how close all life is to sorrow.
♪ We're wondering when you will arrive ♪
♪ We're wondering what you'll be ♪
♪ We're wondering if you'll be a her ♪
♪ Or if you'll be a he ♪
♪ Maybe you'll arrive today ♪
♪ Perhaps tomorrow night ♪
♪ We're hoping you won't hurt too much ♪
♪ And that you'll be all right ♪
♪ Life has a few unpleasantries ♪
♪ We may as well confess ♪
♪ We suppose you'll cry a lot ♪
♪ And that you'll be a mess ♪
♪ There is one thing You should note well ♪
♪ Of this, there is no doubt ♪
♪ You cannot get inside again ♪
♪ Once you have come out ♪
♪ Even though there's trouble ♪
♪ Even though there's fuss ♪
♪ We really think you'll like it here ♪
♪ We hope that you like us ♪
Now the name of that song is "Dilated to Meet You."
Or...
"At Your Cervix."
And, uh...
I wrote it probably about 1973...
when we were waiting on Rufus to make his grand entrance.
[applause]
When we told, um...
my grandmother that her first great-grandchild
was not going to be called Loudon Wainwright IV,
but Rufus...
she said...
"Rufus...
Rufus?
That's a dog's name!"
Yeah, she was right.
Let me just tune again.
[tuning]
You can't tell.
It's those guitar techs at home that I'm worried about.
Eh.
Okay, so "Dilated to Meet You" was written in 1974,
'73, I think I said.
18 years later, this one popped out.
♪ When I was your age I was just like you ♪
♪ Just look at me now I'm sure you do ♪
♪ But your grandfather was just as bad ♪
♪ You should have heard him Trash his dad ♪
♪ Life's no picnic, that's a given ♪
♪ My mom's mom died When my mom was seven ♪
♪ My mom's father was a tragic guy ♪
♪ He was so distant, nobody knows why ♪
♪ Now, your mother's family ♪
♪ You know them ♪
♪ Each and every one a gem ♪
♪ When I was your age I was a mess on a bad day ♪
♪ I still am, I guess ♪
♪ I think I know What you're going through ♪
♪ Everything changes, but nothing is new ♪
♪ I know that I'm miserable Can't you see? ♪
♪ I just want you to be just like me ♪
♪ Boys grow up to be grown men ♪
♪ And then men change Back into boys again ♪
♪ You are starting up And I'm winding down ♪
♪ Ain't it big enough for us both in this town? ♪
♪ Say it's big enough for us both ♪
♪ When I was your age I thought I hated my dad ♪
♪ That the feeling was a mutual one That we had ♪
♪ We fought each other day and night ♪
♪ I was always wrong, He was always right ♪
♪ But he had the power ♪
♪ He needed to win ♪
♪ His life half over, Mine about to begin ♪
♪ I'm not sure about that Oedipal stuff ♪
♪ But when we were together ♪
♪ It was always rough ♪
♪ Hate is a strong word I want to backtrack ♪
♪ The bigger the front The bigger the back ♪
♪ Now you and me or me and you ♪
♪ It's a different ballgame No, not brand new ♪
♪ I don't know what All this fighting is for ♪
♪ We're having us a teenage/middle-age war ♪
♪ I don't want to die ♪
♪ You want to live ♪
♪ Takes a little bit of take And a whole lot of give ♪
♪ Never really ends, though Each race is run ♪
♪ This thing between a father and a son ♪
♪ Maybe it's power ♪
♪ Push and shove ♪
♪ Maybe it's hate, probably it's love ♪
Right in the middle of a long New Year's weekend full of bright weather
on lovely snow and a numbing succession of televised quarterbacks...
our dog died.
Or to put it absolutely straight, after a family agreement rare in its unanimity,
we had his life stopped...
by a veterinarian who agreed it was the right thing to do
for such a painfully and fatally ill animal.
His name was John Henry.
I don't know why we called him that.
I don't think I've ever been more sharply aware
of the fine line between here and gone
than I was near the end when I held him close on the vet's table.
The kind doctor, her eyes floating in tears
because she knew him and us,
pumped something bluish into his leg.
And with a calm, open-eyed patience
that characterized so much of his style,
he waited that briefest moment
until it struck his center...
and killed him.
Couple of polite gasps...
and it was over.
Slightly undone by my sentiment,
and for some wild reason, remembering not Lassie,
but Love Story
and the astounding communicative success of Erich Segal,
I will now risk a version of his opening question.
What can you say about an 11 and a half year old dog that died?
That he was at least as beautiful as Ali MacGraw.
He was dumber...
a messier eater.
That he ran shining and marvelously fast through fields
and rolled snorting in snow
and floated a burnt auburn blur over stone walls,
that he didn't much mind Mozart and Bach,
but that violin solos and harmonicas made him howl.
That he could destroy six glasses
with one sweep of his tail.
But when I asked him how he ranked me among the people he liked,
he would thump his tail against the floor and grin,
occasionally punctuating that with a noise...
that became a smell.
Well, he was half-Irish Setter and half-golden retriever.
His manners were predictably imperfect.
There was a totally non-human quality about his loving.
Virtually everyone was a suitable target for his affection.
And unlike your one-man brute who will slobber over his master's hand
and then dismember the neighbor's child...
he menaced nothing,
including the rabbits he chased and never got
and the skunks who always got him.
Not that he was indiscriminating. He was not a tramp.
He did not follow strangers.
He was a wide-ranging country dog,
but his daily investigations most always brought him home at night.
He liked to sleep on rugs...
usually where it was convenient to stumble over him.
He liked to ride in cars.
Best... he liked to be invited on walks.
And he worked like a roving scout,
around the walker, in front, behind, alongside,
often at a dead run a good distance away.
And when he rested in winter
during one of these wonderful dashes in all directions,
he would break ice in a stream to cool his belly and his tongue.
Although he was forced to live with a succession...
of cats...
I don't think he liked them at all.
Yet in most moods but joy, he was a model of understatement,
the weary and wary tolerance he displayed at the cats' rude spitting
or at their hit-and-run assaults from ambush
from beneath a chair was the closest he ever came to expressing real distaste.
Obviously, our knowledge about his relationships with other dogs is limited.
He probably had wet down bark or bush
with every dog within a radius of three miles,
but he didn't seem to care much for groups,
preferring instead to run alone or with just one other at a time.
He was alert, forward,
but never aggressive.
Though his hair bristled splendidly,
and he growled well when challenged,
he had a distinct aptitude for avoiding fights
and could walk away from one
with a casualness that implied it wouldn't be worth his trouble.
In his later years, he was treated roughly
by a much younger and stronger dog down the road,
but he accepted this indignity in a way that wasn't cowardly,
as if it were in the normal order of things
that the puppy he had earlier taught to play...
was now bouncing him around quite badly.
Even when he was very feeble and old...
he always trotted out to defend his home station.
I hope he had a full and happy sex life.
But I only know of one affair.
It was arranged and he fathered a litter from it.
His partner in this matter was a female dog
from a household of good friends.
She too was sweet and easygoing,
and she looked more or less as if she came from a similarly mixed background.
We tell a story about this match.
I'm no longer sure if it's entirely true, but the story goes...
oblivious to approaching delight,
he was taken by car to the vets
for one supervised meeting.
The vet said afterwards he felt sure everything had gone well,
but perhaps for insurance, the two should be brought together again the next day.
So the next day, our dog was put in the car, driven to his appointment,
which was once more declared a success.
The affair was pronounced consummated and closed,
the dog came home.
The following morning, he was found ready in the car...
presumably awaiting another trip...
and another meeting.
Unlike Segal's doomed creature, this one wasn't perfect.
Now and then, his taste in food would turn to garbage
and he upset many cans in search of the ripest morsels.
He dug holes in lawns.
He liked to sprawl on young plants.
He was a discoverer of mud!
When he found something often invisible,
and even non-existent, to bark at...
he barked hard and utterly ignored commands
to stop it!
Come the hell home!
I am proud of one area of his ignorance.
He knew no tricks at all.
Unless you count a sort of half-baked paw shake
he employed, as a last effort,
in his perpetual and undiscouraged search for affection.
In his last days, he had great difficulty getting up.
He tottered weakly on three legs and was dreadfully thin.
The pain, even muffled with pills, was leaving him stupid with exhaustion
and it became clear past all reluctance that what he needed most...
was a push out of life.
Briefly, I had the conventional and outlandish thought of doing it myself.
So did one of my sons...
who likely loved the dog the most.
Then with her potion that hit with such shocking and merciful speed...
the doctor ended our nonsense.
That night, I dreamed that my son kept calling him.
The boy had a way of calling that dog.
I woke.
Life gets to be a series of dogs, I thought,
and I ticked off those I could remember.
Ghosts in the house suddenly.
Old dogs...
When I slept and woke again, it was cold, half-light.
I was almost sure I heard the dog's toenails against the hall floor...
and his single, discrete bark
to go outside.
I won't live with a lot more dogs.
And I won't live with another dog like him.
♪ When a man has a dog in the city ♪
♪ A man needs to walk in the park ♪
♪ Take a little stroll by the riverside ♪
♪ Smoke a cigarette there in the dark Living in the city ♪
♪ Living with a dog ♪
♪ And a man has to carry him a plastic bag On his person at all times ♪
♪ When a dog dumps on the sidewalk ♪
♪ Walking away is a crime Living in the city ♪
♪ Walking with a dog ♪
♪ A man likes living in the city ♪
♪ City, city ♪
♪ But a man has to find some work ♪
♪ Walking with a dog is a kind of a job ♪
♪ Make you feel like a fool and a jerk Living in the city ♪
♪ Working like a dog ♪
Work out, Loudo!
♪ A dog likes living in the city ♪
♪ City, city ♪
♪ In a city There's a lot of other mutts ♪
♪ Checking in front, checking in back ♪
♪ No ifs, no ands, just butts Living in the city ♪
♪ Dog checking out a dog ♪
♪ It's a pretty good way to meet a woman ♪
♪ If a woman is walking her dog Just say ♪
♪ "What's her name? How old is she?" ♪
♪ It's easy, like rolling off a log Checking out a woman ♪
♪ Man acting like a dog ♪
♪ But when a man Has a fight with a woman ♪
♪ A man needs to go for a walk ♪
♪ Walking with a dog is easy ♪
♪ He listens, he don't talk ♪
♪ Talking to a dog ♪
Talk to me, Loudo!
♪ Walking with a dog In the winter in the wind ♪
♪ And the rain and the snow is a drag ♪
♪ It's hard as hell To keep a cigarette lit ♪
♪ And get the shit in a plastic bag ♪
♪ Living in the city ♪
♪ Walking with a dog ♪
♪ When a man has a dog in the city ♪
♪ City, city ♪
♪ City ♪
♪ A man needs a walk in the park ♪
♪ Take a little stroll by the riverside ♪
♪ Smoke a cigarette there in the dark Living in the city ♪
♪ Man living with a dog ♪
So in 1985, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer.
And after a three-year battle...
it got him.
He died in December of 1988,
which, interestingly enough, was also the same month and year
that his last column in Life magazine appeared.
Maps are just excuses for the journeys they set us on.
I remember one glorious summer in Maine.
I used to wake up at three or four in the morning,
have coffee, make a couple of sandwiches for me and my wife,
just set off.
There was no great plan.
I had it roughly in mind to follow every little road
leading down to the sea from Deer Isle,
a couple of hundred miles to Campobello, where Maine turns into Canada.
Map in hand, I would cover that huge piece of terrain.
It was even better than I hoped.
We saw scores of little communities
we might just have sped past otherwise.
East Machias, Jonesport, Beals Island...
and each somehow developed its own character
as we approached in this way.
One amazing morning, we drove down a little dirt road
until the fog was so thick, we simply couldn't go any further.
We sat silent for perhaps half an hour
in that gray dampness.
Then suddenly...
the fog lifted...
and we found ourselves in the shining little port of Cutler.
We could never have seen it under such exquisite circumstances.
To appreciate it the way we did, we had to fail first
to see it in the fog.
My connection with maps is a little distant these days.
As much as I'd like to plan for some good coastal trips...
I'm not really up for them.
The possibility of other trips more engulfing intrudes...
and I am unsettled by possible... destinations.
As much as I'd like to think I'm ready for anything,
I'm not really ready to accept all possibilities.
I'm not ready to see where all the roads come to an end.
But the old trips still give pleasure.
I feel joy at the bright sunshine in Cutler.
And I know it...
as well as if I saw it this morning.
♪ I've slumped in your chair ♪
♪ Tossed and turned in your bed ♪
♪ Lurked in your lair I have lived in your head ♪
♪ Where others were closer No one is nearer ♪
♪ As I glimpse you and me in ♪
♪ The hallway mirror, I... ♪
♪ I... ♪
♪ I've grabbed from the plate ♪
♪ I've stabbed with a knife ♪
♪ On day one, my first date I slept with your wife ♪
♪ My common-law stepmom ♪
♪ I desire and fear her ♪
♪ I compare you to me in ♪
♪ The full-length mirror, I... ♪
♪ I... ♪
♪ Sharing hair, forehead lines ♪
♪ Scowling, worrying, thinking ♪
♪ With a penchant for fine wines A disposal toward drinking ♪
♪ You had 'em, I got 'em ♪
♪ I move my face nearer ♪
♪ Broken blood vessels ♪
♪ In the bathroom mirror, I... ♪
♪ I... ♪
♪ And your doormen all know me It's not bizarre ♪
♪ It shouldn't throw me To go move your car ♪
♪ But the ghost of your father ♪
♪ He couldn't be clearer ♪
♪ He's there where he haunted you ♪
♪ The rearview mirror, I... ♪
♪ I... ♪
Well, on the basis of the way things are with my children,
I doubt that the length of the acquaintance
necessarily makes it easier for loved ones to know you better...
or for you to know them.
The past... keeps getting in the way.
My children are all grown now,
deep into the complications of their adult lives,
but where I'm concerned, I'd bet the ghostly parent of earlier Christmases
keeps popping up for them when my number is punched.
The old record complete with stored outrage and disappointment
comes up on the computer screen
and a natural reserve, a caution, built up for years, takes over.
Why shouldn't it?
We share a big chunk of the past
and there were awful bumps.
I've gotten used to the fact that they have their own versions
of how things were.
They're entitled,
even if I recall some things differently.
No, it's not that I want to set the record straight.
That could make matters worse.
But change is possible.
And I'd like to begin work on some sort
of updated realigned model for our connection.
Something that will reflect not so much what we all were...
or think we were...
but what we have become.
♪ Here's another song in C ♪
♪ When I play piano, it's my key ♪
♪ If I was playing my guitar ♪
♪ I'd probably be in G ♪
♪ The chances are ♪
♪ Here's another song in C ♪
♪ With my favorite protagonist ♪
♪ Me ♪
♪ Of my little world, I'll tell and show ♪
♪ I'll sing all about it ♪
♪ So you'll know ♪
♪ When the people in it break my heart ♪
♪ Except to sing in C to you ♪
♪ And there's not a thing I can do ♪
♪ Except to sing in C to you ♪
♪ Oh, there used to be a family ♪
♪ Brother, sisters, father, Mother and me ♪
♪ We were living in a little home ♪
♪ We were fending off the great unknown ♪
♪ But the great unknown, it got inside ♪
♪ And what had been whole It did divide ♪
♪ In the end, the father had to leave ♪
♪ When he did ♪
♪ The mother had to grieve ♪
♪ That's the time real troubles start ♪
♪ It's when a world can fall apart ♪
♪ And there's not a thing I can do ♪
♪ Except to sing in C ♪
♪ To you ♪
[continues playing]
♪ I grew up and had a family ♪
♪ But it broke apart so easily ♪
♪ All that started 40 years ago ♪
♪ Why it's never ended, I don't know ♪
♪ I could blame it on the great unknown ♪
♪ Or as a kid when I was told and shown ♪
♪ But I blame myself ♪
♪ And I blame her ♪
♪ The cruel and foolish people ♪
♪ That we were ♪
♪ And the children that we had are grown ♪
♪ They're out fending off The great unknown ♪
♪ And I've noticed they're a bit like me ♪
♪ With a tendency to sing in C ♪
♪ So by now it's clear to hear and know ♪
♪ I don't play a lot of piano ♪
♪ But sometimes a fella has to sit ♪
♪ Just to sing about the heavy shit ♪
♪ And the great unknown's a hurricane ♪
♪ With howling winds And floods, and driving rain ♪
♪ You might make it through, huh ♪
♪ But you don't know ♪
♪ If right behind it, there's a tornado ♪
♪ And if families didn't break apart ♪
♪ I suppose there'd be no need for art ♪
♪ Oh, but you and I know they do ♪
♪ So I sing in C to you ♪
Thank you very much.
[cheering]
Thanks for coming.
Thank you.
Thank you very much! Thank you.
Thanks for coming out. Thank you.
Thank you.
[instrumental music playing]