THE LIMITS OF BENEVOLENCE
JOURNAL 6
THE ARTIST, THE ASSHOLE
Is ART a wholesome thing to participate in?
Quibbling about the moral substance of an artist’s life is ubiquitous. When I hear that an artist was unusual in a condemnable way, my interest is piqued.
I like that Michelangelo was arrogant, rude, and stinky, —yes even compared to his own fetid time, he was Noteworthily Olfactorily Offensive (N O O as in, Noooooo mike get outta here with your reeky ass). I’m not even crazy about Charlie Parker’s music, but he’s my favorite jazz musician cause I heard he’d fuck two bitches, eat 10 hamburgers, drink 20 whiskeycokes and then go blow his horn on stage. Henry VIII’s music is abominable, but I listen because of his wife-slaying!
But sometimes I’m even more enamored when I hear an artist lived in a laudatory way.
I went to Toni Morrison’s memorial in 2019 and speaker after speaker testified to the quality of her kindness, loyalty, and benevolence superseding even her remarkable work. Samuel Beckett was actively involved in the French Resistance, shielding jews against the Nazis. Norman Rush (who I’m doing a deepdive on right now) was faithful and loving to his wife for 60 years. Those facts make me like their work better.
But is there a moral valence to participating in an artistic enterprise?
My intuition is that ART is simultaneously a grotesque and selfish thing to do (and here I’m speaking about the only things I know: writing fiction & stand-up comedy) and a positive, life-illuminating enterprise.
Which jives with its historical satanic connotations. Because as I’m sure you know, Lucifer, the fallen angel, was the Light-bringer. Prometheus, another guise of the devil, was the Fire-bringer.
I think the destructive aspects afflict most strongly the closest people in your life.
I see my family’s resistance (mostly unspoken) to what I do.
But there is something villainous in taking stories, experiences that might belong to more than one person and turning it into something which is, —maybe not primarily!, —intended for remuneration and acclaim.
I remember being in a cab with Ethan in Rio and he made a joke in English that was very good, and I told it to the cab driver in portuguese and got a big laugh and all the credit.
Yes, I’m all-around rapacious just like that.
I often hear delusional takes from the comedians and writers I know in the vein of, I am doing this because I want to make other people happy. I mean, that’s a load of crap if I’ve ever seen one.
Certainly there are more ethically dubious roles than novelist, —a boxing client of mine just started working for a guy who’s building autonomous security drones (how could that go wrong?), —but the primary reason I do what I do is to please myself because I want to live a life devoted to leisure and play.
If I really wanted to help people I would do something much more robust than telling them a joke.
But there is this other luciferian aspect to the work.
Sometimes work of the highest quality (which is the only thing that matters to me) is truly illuminating. It can open venues of experience and imagination that you never thought possible.
If you have to live behind these eyes and this brain, cultivating the most vigorous vitality in your seeing feeling thinking is the most valuable thing you can do.
There is also the avenue of opening up participation in the enterprise.
Great books and great comedians is what sparked for me the desire to devote my life to idleness. I couldn’t think of anything more important happening for me.
And here is another thing: I fictionalized a very real “traumatic” event in my first novel, one my mother never talked about until after she read about it in my book, and she never mentioned that I used it in my book, except obliquely, but since then, she’s discussed the event.
I feel like what I wrote allowed her to talk about it.
I think that’s a good thing.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m trying to make stuff to please myself, and if that prejudicates you, I’m very sorry, and if it pleases you, then I’m very happy.
But it’s too late for me to try and be a nurse.
OLD WORLD
March 25 is a big day in the old world. Before the calendar we use, it was the new year. It’s also the legendary day of Creation, and it is the date of the Annunciation (when Gabriel let the very virgin, very obedient Maria know that she was about to port Jesus for 9 months).
So it is a date of renewal, the real beginning of Spring.
In 2025, it was also a big day in OldWorld, as my 76 year old fighter Steve finally, unbelievably found a suitable opponent. Steve has wanted to fight since I started training him three years ago, after he crept up behind me at an open mic and whispered in my ear, “my twin sister stole my inheritance”.
He’s as serious tough and dedicated as any of my other fighters, —if not more so.
But truly, I didn’t think we would ever find him an opponent unless we were to dig up his hero Harry Haft’s bones and prop them up for a melee.
(Honestly a carcass would be preferable, we wouldn’t have to train as hard; however, USA Boxing would not sanction it.)
Serendipitously, a 75 year old dude name Howie the same size and sexual orientation as Steve (gay) fell out of the sky for us from Gleason’s.
He came by and they sparred.
Have you ever seen two septuagenarians try to bash eachother’s skulls in? Too bad P.T. Barnum is no longer around. We could’ve taken them on tour. They were scrapping, hard. The guy got more experience, but Steve can beat him. It was very close.
Then Steve got the nerve to hop out the ring and ask me if I think he’s tough. Bruh. I keep telling him his biggest problem ain’t that he’s soft, it’s that he’s stupid!
But we never know where our true problems lie.
If you want to see them in real action come to Church Street Boxing Gym on May 3rd.
Later that day, I went to an open mic that should make inspiring someone to do stand-up comedy an official crime against humanity. But it did set the world record for consecutive white comics with a bit about the n-word: six.
I was warming up because I had a spot on the first round of a comedy competition that night. After having abandoned traditional material for about a year and a half in favor of a different persona, Mr. Meltdown, it has taken me a while to get my tight 5 into working order.
But that night, my 5 was sharp, and it allowed me to help and enhappify the audience more than any other comic on the lineup. My extreme and total benevolence got me first place. I moved onto the next round.
THE RED BASTARD
The next round of the competition was the very next night. Unfortunately I had to face off against my greatest rival in the scene: the Red Bastard.
The Red Bastard is a tall, gorgeous, red-haired fellow in his early 40s. He was the best Improv comedian in New York City 12 years ago, but he was dissatisfied with the decadent lifestyle he was leading, and so he converted to Islam and went to live in Morocco for almost a decade.
Long story short, that didn’t work out.
He was expelled from Morocco and now he’s back, and he’s Episcopalian again. Since Improv is extinct except for corporate workshops, he’s trying to be a stand-up comedian. He is a thorn in my side.
He went right before me and absolutely crushed. Of course I was frazzled! He came off the stage and as I’m graciously offering him knuckles, he whispers in my ear, “you’re screwed, asshole.”
I had a fine set, but the Red Bastard won the round. We both moved on to the semi-finals this Wednesday, where I’m gonna have to confront him once more. Wish me luck.
MY FRIEND IS CONVALESCENT AFTER A HERNIA SURGERY AND ON THURSDAY I WENT ALL THE WAY OUT TO BROOKLYN TO VISIT HIM
Wasn’t that nice of me?
I AM MUSIC
Another of my fighters, Adam, plays in a heavy metal band called Sentiment.
(He might object to the term heavy metal, but I am not attuned to the nuances of the hard rock genres. He told me exactly what it was once, but I can’t remember.)
Gaby and I went out to Rabbit Hole in Bushwick to check out his show. We knew we were at the right venue because right outside the door, a young lady dressed in black from head-to-toe, her face made-up in white and black like a skeleton, threw her finished can of FourLoko right into the street, —don’t worry, FourLokos are biodegradable.
Now, I was very anxious. I don’t go to many concerts because my dream growing up was to be a musician, and it was brutally thwarted twice.
In second grade I signed up for the school talent show because I was trying to impress the girls in fourth grade. I was gonna play guitar. This was the first step in my budding rockstardom.
Unfortunately, my “talent” was a complete delusion. I only played well in the fantasies in my head. I took guitar lessons with an old hippie named Barry. He’d ask me if I’d been practicing. I’d lie and then spend the next 59 minutes willing time to pass faster while he admonished me for looking at the clock.
Before the big show, I went out to Spencer’s at the mall with my mom and I got ripped jeans with a chain hanging off them and two spiked bracelets.
I should’ve spent more time practicing, in hindsight.
My set was a choppy, butchered version of the opening riff to the song “Wipe Out” and the G major chord. I don’t exaggerate, that was all. Plus, I skipped rehearsal, so I didn’t know how long I had on stage. I played my set (which was only worth about 33 good seconds of show) over and over and over again for about six minutes, until the crowd got completely restless and turned on me. I say they booed me off stage which is not exactly true. But ambient chatter turned to a wave of surly groans and they wanted me out of there desperately. Eventually, a teacher came on stage and grabbed me. My guitar playing career was over.
The second incident was more egregious because I was in college. At least in the talent show, I had the excuse of youth.
When I was a freshman at Miami University, I convinced myself that I could really sing. I joined a barbershop quartet called the Curly Eddies.
There wasn’t a lot of competition for the Curly Eddies at this time. I only realized in retrospect that nobody else auditioned and that was the only reason I made the group. But I did look good in the outfit. We would dress up in tuxedos with red bowties and slick our hair back and put on polished dress shoes.
I would bring dates to our sparsely-attended shows and almost without fail they would happen to be busy afterwards, or be stricken down with a migraine.
I didn’t see a pattern. I was looking up when I could next audition for The Voice.
The three other guys (who I won’t even deign to name) didn’t treat me very well.
I thought it was because they were jealous of me. It all came crashing down one fateful day when we were invited to a private show off campus.
It was this bigshot alumni donor who’d been in an acapella group when he went to Miami. He had a big beautiful house, deviled egg hors d'oeuvres. The works.
He had a bunch of friends there. I should’ve been suspicious. After our first song, he stopped us and he said, “something’s wrong here.” And he made each of us hold a note. When it got to me, he said, “it’s you, you’re the problem.” He asked if he could take my place for the next song. What was I supposed to say? He sang the next song with the crew and the crowd burst into applause. He said, “isn’t that much better?” And my so-called friends agreed.
I was forced out of the Curly Eddies. The alumni took my spot. In two months, I turned on the TV and saw that they were performing on the local Cincinatti morning show.
I walked home that night in the rain; hair grease and tears mingling with the rain on my face. I never sang again.
Anyway, Adam’s band was much better than I expected. I really enjoyed the show.
FIDI PARTY
After the show, me and Gaby took the J train back into Manhattan.
We were meeting up with her friend Leya at a party in Fidi. We stopped to get some pizza beforehand, —the two of us are kinda health-nuts so we never have pizza, but the chips we ate on the train didn’t sate us so we went for the pizza.
I spilled some sauce on my hoodie which really made me nervous. Whenever we hang out with her friend Leya, whatever is happening is usually cool.
But before we went up to the apartment, Gaby said, “by the way, Leya told me that this guy is a Trump supporter.” Which was a great relief, cool-wise.
We walked into the apartment on the 40whateverth floor. It was doused in fluorescent light and there was no music playing. The only decoration was a framed print of George Washington crossing the Delaware.
The host greeted us: we’ll call him Vlad. It was his birthday.
He was half-Ruski half-Japanese. I immediately knew my ingratiation tactics, “George Washington huh bro? I love that.”
He immediately, —and ostensibly unconsciously, —started Trumping, waving his both his hands out in front of his face, pursing his lips and talking about how George was our greatest leader.
Vlad was a quintessential young goofball. I couldn’t stop laughing at almost everything he said.
We were pulled into his bedroom to witness cocaine use. He had a big tome on his desk, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs. I said, “is that the only book you have?”
He goes, “yeah bro and I got it today! Reading is so fucking hard!”
I concurred.
Really the highlight of the whole night was this dude J.L. who was immediately friendly and who Gaby got to talking to and found out he was brasilian! Bruh, there is nothing like unearthing a secret brasilian at a party when you’re of the ilk.
We were a primarily-portuguese triumvirate for the rest of the night. He’s a Rolex salesman in Westchester (yes it was that kind of party), who was born in a town with no paved roads around Curitiba. “You really got it out the mud, huh?” Gaby said. J.L. said, “YES!”
We were ODing on the brasilianity. The topic of Last Meals came up and we all concurred: “OBVIOUSLY RICE AND BEANS!”
I asked Vlad, “do you speak any other languages?”
He said, “not a word!”
He grew up with J.L. and they were going to Brasil together in a couple months. I said, “how about ‘Oi, tudo bem?’”
He said, “I have no fucking clue what that means!”
J.L. said, “but I taught you that!”
After we left Leya said she wasn’t crazy about J.L. I think she felt left out of LusophoneWorld. She said he was mansplainey.
Which I think might be a common female reaction to hearing an extended discourse on the Greatest Watch of All Time, —which I requested.
Our Rolex liaison said that it was the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch; which was the watch actually worn by the astronauts on the moon.
I went out and bought one the very next day. Cheap! Only 8 grand!
When we got back to Gaby’s house while she was waiting for me in bed ravenous, I took advantage of being out of her eyeshot and, —despite my fitness-fanaticism, —chowed cookies over her sink, thinking to myself:
“I am an artist.”
If you have any questions about this piece, other pieces, or anything else, email me at contactharoldrogers@gmail.com and I will eventually answer them in a public Q&A on this Stack.
leya and i are fucking obsessed