Dancing man plus

The very sad news of Pete Seeger's passing yesterday took me back to something I hadn't thought about for some time.

It was Spring, 1990, a lively time for the Grouse, to say the least.  I had been translating Ilya Kabakov, along with other Russian Conceptualist and Post-Conceptualist (no kidding)* artists for a magazine and a couple of gallery shows, so when there was a big Kabakov show at the Hirshhorn in DC, along with something else I wanted to see, I hopped in my car and drove up there one weekend I had off.  I even took my beat-up classical guitar, figuring I might do a little busking.  I was kinda freewheeling.

Now, since I had just finished college a couple of years before and I knew that people my age had gravitated to the Adams Morgan area, and since I had neither money nor inclination to spend on lodging, I figured I would just drive up to DC, go to Adams Morgan, and walk around and pop into bars and restaurants until I ran into somebody.  So that's what I did.  And in the first restaurant I went into I saw my friends John, Gretchen, and maybe somebody else I knew having sangria.  So I joined them at there table and asked John if I could stay with him.  "Sure," he said (at least that's how I remembered it).  And it's a good thing it worked out like that, because, though Spring was on its way by then, it was chilly out.

John had a nice place, and he put me up real nice.  In the morning, I took the metro down to the mall and was headed across to the Hirshhorn, when I saw a big crowd of scruffy types gathering.  I went over to check out what it was. Turns out, it was a launch party for a movie called Romero, starring Raul Julia, about a Salvadoran clergyman who faught the military regime there and got iced for his efforts. I saw people carrying banners, and figured I might find even more friends there if I tried, and saw that there were people up in a sort of tower.

But when I tried to get over there, I was told that it was for press only.  Not to be easily deterred, I told them that I represented Social Text and "several Russian journals," or somesuch, but I didn't have my credentials handy.  Somehow they let me in, I dunno, and when I went in I saw that there was a staging tent, so I went in there.  And as soon as I got in there, there was Pete Seeger with his banjo, dancing and glowing and showing some cool lick to a guy I'm pretty sure was Bishop Paul Moore. I didn't really know that much about Pete Seeger, honestly, I was a young badassed punk rocker, but I knew who he was, and he had a great smile, a great aura all around.  And, in the back of the tent, I saw something that was even more amazing for me, a true hero:  Ed Asner.  He was sitting there quietly in the back, on his own, just chilling.

Now, even then I knew that it was better not to bother celebrities too much, but for Ed Asner I had to make an exception. He was great in Mary Tyler More, better even in Lou Grant (note to self, check Netflix), but I really loved him from a schmaltzy TV movie they used to show every year around Xmas, The Gathering. I'll spare you the details, because I'm running on here.  Anyway, I went up to him, introduced myself, told him how much I loved his work, asked him what he was working on, and then left him in piece, apologizing for bothering him. To this day, that was probably my best celebrity encounter ever, precisely because I loved the guy, I told him that, and then moved on.

Then I went and saw the art show, and it was nice too, then drove home to NC, taking some back roads for some portion of the way, just because that's how contrarian I was/am.  I'm still amazed I pulled off that trip and found a place to stay.  It was a fine day.



*ps. I had never heard of Conceptualism either before that, and I knew me some isms!  I also had never heard of the Hirshhorn, but somehow figured out where it was, in those pre-internet days.