Today I leave for
yet another big long tour. It is similar to another one I started
four-and-a-half months ago, and another one I started four months
before that. It seems, for the past five years, that I've been taking
between two and three two-to-three-month trips a year. I have
identical battery chargers with three different countries' plugs.
There is currency from five different countries in my change jar. I
have spent way too much time overwhelmed by jet-lagged,
needlessly-terrified during airplane turbulence, and bereft of my
collections of impractical onesies and heavy necklaces. I have spent
a large chunk of several years being on tour. I'm retiring.
I'm not retiring.
But I have turned down two well-paid international gigs this year
already, gigs that would fly me to faraway places and put me up and
all that stuff. I have said, enough is enough, for the time being.
Def no more overseas work for the foreseeable future.
You know, unless
you get an offer you can't refuse. But you can't wait around for
those.
It is, of course,
bittersweet. I loved touring. I met so many beautiful people, I grew
so much as a teacher and a performer. I mean, the shows! All over the
dang anglish-speakin' wirrld! And the workshops. The incredible
communion with performers from all over the place.
It all
really hit me during Edinburgh last summer. About a week and a half
into shows, the audiences were applauding right when I came on, like
I was famous or at least someone they recognized from their gym. I
have no idea how that happened, and I'm sure there's some reasonable
explanation for it—but it occurred to me in those moments, this
might be the height of your performance career. It may not get any
better than this. I killed it at
the biggest arts fest in the world, night after night. For me that
felt like a big deal.
But
then again, my definition of "killing it" at Edinburgh
means that I cleared a few thousand dollars and had a lot of great
shows and didn't get seriously depressed even once. There's of course
further to go. My famous friend always asks me, when I'm about to go
on another tour, "Are they paying to fly you first class?"
And I have to say no, and remember that, if they were, I probably
wouldn't be semi-retiring right now. I'd have a personal chef and an
entourage, and I'd never be lonely again hahahaaaa.
But
that's a whole other life.
I
think in order to get to "the next level" with Butt
Kapinski, I would have to first amp up my social media and video
content by roughly a gazillion percent, and then, I'd have to put
Butt around TV/film-type opportunities. That's just for starters, and
who knows, really, if if if if if. There's a lot to do in this world.
I have a lot of other plans.
Which is not to say
that Butt is dead, not at all. I'm pretty sure I will do Butt
Kapinski for the rest of my life. It probably just won't be for month-long
runs at faraway festivals.
I mean, you never
know... but I've noticed things about myself on tour for the last
year or two... I'm not as social as I used to be. Wherever I go, I
seem most excited about finding a local pool and a good tupperware to
carry salads around in. When I'm not actually working, I spend a lot
of time watching "RuPaul's Drag Race" in bed. I make fewer
friends each tour; I rarely go dancing; I miss home.
And so, I'm hanging
up my golf-club-case and my battery chargers for the foreseeable
future.
But
I'm definitely going to enjoy this last tour. One month in England,
two weeks in Australia. Some long flights, but a lot of opportunities
and inspiring artists and good black tea. Each time I've toured, I've
seen the progression: the way one's reputation has baked even more
into the soil of the tour in front of you, so you feel that the soil
is more prepped for your seed than it was the first time you tried to
plant it (so to speak). You feel those moments when you headline some
lineup show that wouldn't have booked you three years ago. When you
hob-knob with someone you used to think was far beyond your coolness
level. Those moments when someone wants to gush over how amazing you
are, and you know what? You stop them. Because enough people have
gushed over you now. That I'm famous feeling
is fun, but it's fraught, too. It's fragile. It's like 6am on a
spring day, when the air is so fresh and delicate you want to suck it
all up through your nose. Actually no it isn't. It's like those
Trader Joe's chocolate truffles that you eat ten of the first time you
try them, and then the next time you encounter them, you can only eat two, and then you don't want any anymore ever. Your body just sees them
and shakes its head.
Did I choose to
semi-retire, or did semi-retirement choose me? Who knows? I think
every career has its own trajectory and its own momentum and its own
path, and everything has to end sometime. Not like it's over, but it
could be semi-over. And I'm kinda fine with that. I'm 44, you know
what I mean? But it's not just about age. It's about coziness and
routine and community, and how increasingly important those are to me
now that I've really found them up in my Slightly-More-Urban Twin
Peaks, USA. It's the spot from which to go forward with my personal
next-step-in-world-domination.
It's a big world;
sometimes going further means taking smaller steps.
