You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures

by Alan Cumming

  Joan E, an old chum from Vancouver.

  Naked Tony and Clio.

  Whitney entertaining the troops.

  Diego.

  Joey.

  Patrick.

  James.

  Don’t ask.

  Didn’t catch her name.

  Nor his.

  I call her “lolly snatcher.”

  This was the morning after the night before scene in my LA hotel room after hosting the Britannia Awards in 2012.

  In a hotel room at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, 2004.

  Drag queens are heroes … Or heroines.

  I tend to be looking down a lot by the end of an evening.

  The night my father died.

  I would never put these in my body, but I do love a late-night snack stop.

  Home.

  MURRAY (KING OF THE) HILL

  I FIRST LAID eyes on Murray Hill in 1998. I had just arrived in New York City and was devouring the downtown scene like a deprived child.

  One Sunday night I was taken to the Spy Bar in Soho. There were little spyglasses upstairs and you could sip a cocktail and sneak peeks of the clientele below. It was like living in New York City in microcosm—the thrill of watching was shared equally with those who knew they were being watched.

  The first night I went there I spied Murray. You couldn’t miss him. He was standing next to a skinny blonde club princess named Penelope Tuesdae, and he and she were the hosts of the evening. I had never spoken to a drag king before, but Murray didn’t fit any of my preconceived notions about what one would be like: he was just a funny guy, sort of like someone I imagined you’d see on TV in America in the 1950s, too knowing and his eye too twinkly for you to completely believe his schtick, but obviously very comfortable with himself. One night Murray and Penelope sang. It was awful, and a star was truly born.

  I have been to Murray’s shows over the years and have got to know him well. Every time I see him, my face lights up. He’s like my favorite uncle, and indeed going to see his shows is like seeing a relative grab the mic at a wedding and refuse to give it back. You can’t believe what he just said or how he just murdered some standard, but you never want him to stop.

  Murray embodies the whole downtown club/performance scene for me, not only because we started enjoying it around the same time, but because he is daring and full of abandon and completely devoted to his craft. Yes, that’s right, craft. AND he is also a really nice guy. I have taken all sorts of people of all ages and all sexual orientations to Murray’s shows and no matter how dirty or out of hand the evening has become, my guests have always been enchanted by this man, his warmth, and his love of life.

  JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL

  ONE NIGHT I was in my favorite bar in New York City, Eastern Bloc, having a few drinks with friends, when all of a sudden the DJ stopped playing, dry ice started being pumped all around us, and the strains of a song—at the time unfamiliar to me but now firmly lodged in my consciousness—started to blast through the speakers.

  Suddenly a sparkly drag queen materialized through the smoke and began to lip-synch to Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”

  Because the story was so morbid—a young mother with a baby strapped in the backseat of her car loses control on some black ice and decides, instead of trying to right the car or protect herself and her child, that she will leave it up to the Lord to decide her fate—I thought it was a joke, a parody of country music’s catchy gloominess. But no.

  Then the chorus kicked in and yes, there appeared a girl dressed in a bad wig and beard holding a steering wheel. I give you, from my reality, “Jesus, Take the Wheel” …

  TRAVIS AND HIS FRIEND

  THIS IS ANOTHER picture taken in the bathroom of Julius’s bar in New York City’s West Village at John Cameron Mitchell’s monthly party, Mattachine, named in honor of the Mattachine Society, one of America’s earliest gay rights groups.

  Travis, in the foreground, and his friend were posing for me, but when I saw this picture afterward I could see something totally genuine and honest in the way his friend was looking up at him. I don’t know if they were lovers, but I imagine that the friend would have liked it to be so.

  22ND STREET

  I TOOK THIS in the apartment I lived in on 22nd Street in New York City in 2003. It was a funny old place: huge, like living in a basketball court, I always thought. The best thing about it was I could exercise my dog, Honey, without having to go outside as she loved to chase me around the perimeter of the enormous living space and the floors were wooden and shiny so she skidded at every corner and we both ran and ran till we were dizzy and hysterical.

  Another good thing this flat taught me was that I am not cut out for loft living. I could never get really cozy. I had bought it with someone but we split up and so I moved in alone. But the whole aesthetic and sensibility were not for me. It was all that person’s, and living in a house you’d bought for someone who is no longer in your life is not very healthy. I didn’t stay there for long.

  The upstairs was a little better because it had some actual rooms and a terrace, which I loved, though because I knew I wasn’t going to make this my home home, I never really committed to the terrace—and as you can see from this picture it became a bit of a dumping ground as I stutteringly unpacked.

  Honey loved it, though.

  The sign I stole when driving up a mountainside in Tuscany, because I just thought it looked like it was telling us we should beware of men shoveling up poop. And I actually think we should.

  The yoga mat was recently washed and drying in the sunshine. It is actually quite a contentious yoga mat, if you can imagine such a thing, for it has emblazoned on it “Fuck Yoga.” My friend Barnaby used to have a line of T-shirts and yoga gear and skateboards that all read “Fuck Yoga” and I was the poster boy for the catalogue he had made to sell them. It all caused quite a stir. Some people just thought it was funny and appreciated it in the way it was intended—adding the word “fuck” to the most benign and least-likely activity to arouse expletives was a way of provoking a response and hopefully engendering a discourse about language and humor. But for others, the whole thing really pressed their buttons and they couldn’t exactly explain why. I loved it.

  Once I was working out in a gym in Vancouver. When I arrived I’d seen a few people whispering about me, something that I am very used to and so I thought little of it. A short time later, as I was puffing away on the pec machine, a young, perfectly formed trainer walked toward me looking a little sheepish.

  “I’m sorry to ask you this,” he began.

  “Of course,” I countered, knowing the best way to deal with this situation was to find a pen and a piece of paper, give him the autograph, and let us both move on as quickly and efficiently as possible. But no, that was not what he wanted at all.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave the gym,” he said.

  “What?” I spluttered.

  “Some of the members are offended by your …” He gestured down to me with his muscly hand and for an awful, brief moment I thought my penis was sticking out of my shorts. But then I realized the cause of his consternation. I was wearing a “Fuck Yoga” tank top.

  “My shirt?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yes. Many of our members practice yoga,” he said solemnly.

  “Well, so do I!” I laughed a little, aware now of those I had offended looking over from their little Lululemon huddle. “Look at my body!”

  I admit this was a strange and possibly ill-timed admonition but it was true. Had there been a yoga class available there was no way I would have been struggling with these unfamiliar fitness machines.

  “Our members don’t like yoga being made fun of,” the trainer continued.

  I looked over his shoulder at my humorless Canadian accusers and shouted, “But it’s a joke! It’s ironic! I love yoga!”

  They turned away, as one. I noticed one of them was wearing white socks that came up to j
ust below his knobbly knees and at that exact moment I knew it was a lost cause. I got up and left.

  The person in the picture is Rob, my boyfriend at the time. He was training to run the New York Marathon and had just come back to my flat after a huge, long run up the West Side Highway. He would always be drenched in sweat after a run and want to shower immediately, but first he had to run the gauntlet of me, my ever-curious nose, which loved to explore the olfactory nuances of an active young gentleman, and also my camera. This is as close I got to him that afternoon.

  Eventually he did run the marathon and what an eye-opening experience that was—for me, at any rate. First of all it entailed my going on the subway to Brooklyn, twice in one day, to cheer him on at various stages of the ordeal. At mile fifteen his friend and co-runner was on the point of collapse and had I not been holding her up she would have fallen to the ground in an exhausted, sweaty pile. Her younger sister, who was my runner-wife companion for the day, gave her some water and shoved a plastic tube of energy gel into her mouth.

  “I’m not a quitter,” the elder girl kept mumbling as her knees wobbled like jelly.

  “I know you’re not, but look, you’re not well,” I remonstrated, horrified at seeing someone so physically break down in front of my very eyes.

  “Come on! You can do it!” shouted a well-wisher from the crowd behind us.

  “No, she can’t!” I shouted back to them, angrily. “She’s practically unconscious!”

  “You can do it!” they shrieked, ignoring me.

  “Stop fucking encouraging her,” I yelled back.

  Just then, something changed in her eyes, and I could feel the strength returning to her body. She lifted herself up from my grasp and tottered off into the swaying, sweaty throng. The glucose from the gel pack had kicked in and her brain, if not her body, had told her she was well enough to continue.

  The worst part of the marathon was in Harlem, mile twenty-two. I saw Rob turn a corner and hardly recognized him. At mile fifteen, he had bounded past me like a gazelle. Now he looked like an old man. Everything in his body seemed to be shutting down, and indeed it probably was. I was shouting louder and louder to try and get him to hear me, to will away the old man and to encourage the return of the gazelle I had seen earlier, and, frankly, that I wanted to sleep with that night. Finally he heard me as he ran close by and I saw a little flicker of a smile, but it was painful to watch.

  Soon after, I was at the finishing line. Mark my words, if you ever think of running a marathon, go to the finishing line of one and just watch the array of battered humanity that struggles across your vision. It will be seared into your mind forever, and you will never want to entertain something so stupid again. I saw people collapsing, vomiting, pooping, crawling, all to the cheers and encouragement of their lunatic friends and family. I felt as though I was at a cult meeting and I was the only one who was not a member. All around me foil blankets flapped in the breeze, covering the beleaguered bodies of those who had just crossed the finish line. I saw them look down proudly at the medal that now hung round their necks, with a mixture of huge pride, disbelief, and utter shock.

  Back at the flat I made Rob and his chum lie in baths of ice, as I had done some research and found this was the best thing to do to hasten recovery and prevent injury. Later we had friends over and had a little marathon celebration party. I made a toast, frank both in my admiration for their having achieved such a huge goal but also in my incredulity that intelligent people would want to punish their bodies and threaten their health in such a momentous way. I reminded everyone of the whole reason marathons are run: In 490 BC, a poor bloke named Pheidippides ran from the battle of Marathon to Athens to bring the message that the Persians had been defeated. He ran the entire 26.2 miles without stopping, and when he arrived managed to get out “We have won,” then promptly dropped down dead. So marathon running is really a celebration of death.

  Which brings me to the stone dog in the picture. People used to think it was meant to represent Honey, and though it looked a bit like her, I’d actually been given it by my mum as a housewarming present when my ex-wife and I moved into a flat in London in the late 1980s. I got it in the divorce and it has stayed with me through many moves, relationships, and homes since. Now, sadly, it does represent Honey. After she died in 2014, we moved this stone dog to her favorite spot on the deck at our house in the Catskills, where she loved to lie, one eye on the reveling humans around her, the other scanning the meadow below for pesky deer and wild turkey. We had a little memorial for her and put flowers round the stone dog’s neck and dropped some of her ashes between its paws. Every time we pull up in the driveway upstate, there it is, gazing out over the meadow from Honey’s spot, and so naturally it has now come to be Honey.

  So I’m glad I’ve lugged such an unwieldy thing around the world for twenty-five years. And nearby, the Italian “Beware the Poop” sign leans against a wall, and often, nursing a beer and laughing his booming laugh and thankfully no longer running marathons, sits Rob.

  And I still do yoga on my “Fuck Yoga” mat.

  CHEST PEACE

  I’M GENERALLY pretty happy with my body but I do wish I had a hairy chest. This fine specimen is not mine, alas.

  I’m hairy everywhere else, annoyingly. My legs are forests. My arm hair I sometimes have to trim as it gets a little unruly, and as for my armpits … they positively gush with hirsuteness. My butt, my … you know, I could go on.

  Just not my chest. Well there’s a little bit, a sort of weird, straggly copse at my sternum. The rest of my body hair is pretty wavy so this looks like someone has glued on a tuft from some girl’s abandoned weave. I once grew so sick of its solitude I shaved it off, only to discover a newfound appreciation as I realized it acted as shading and gave my pecs some much-needed definition.

  I am ever hopeful though. I remember when my dad got a hairy chest. He must have been in his late thirties or early forties, and one day I saw him change his shirt and was shocked to see he had sprouted a flurry of down across his upper chest that hadn’t been there before. Sadly I’m now fifty and nothing approaching a sprout, a flurry, or down has emerged.

  To be honest there have been a few stragglers around my nipples, and on my left pec (as you look down from my vantage point), there is an almost respectable cluster, though as this is not nearly matched on my right side, I mostly shave them off in the interests of symmetry, or lack of.

  So instead I admire others’ chests. Is it because I am so lacking that I enjoy these so much? I’ve thought long and hard about this. And I think no.

  For me, a hairy chest equals Man. Just like a curvy ass and ample tits equal Woman. I like both for the same reasons.

  It’s just less easy to get snaps of the latter, in public places.

  Although …

  SUMMER KNEE JERK

  I LOVE SUMMER in New York. It’s so sexy. People wear fewer clothes than normal and, perversely, get closer to other humans than they normally would. This cluster of limbs would never happen in winter. There’s something leveling in everyone being semiclad. Fashion is, thankfully, mostly forgotten, and instead respect is given to those who dare to bare. Reveal it and you will feel it.

  But it’s not just about exhibitionism, although in a vertical city like New York, where we are part of the view much of the time, every act is in a sense exhibitionistic. No, it’s more about a practical confidence that comes with wearing less—being comfortable and therefore more open to others.

  And desire. Skin and sweat and not caring who just rubbed up against you at the bar, or whose knee yours were pressed up against. It’s summer and all bets are off. Enjoy.

  GLENN CLOSE’S BACK

  A FEW YEARS ago I was walking along the red carpet at the Tonys, as you do, and something happened that, although very common at these types of occasions, might seem rather bizarre to those who do not frequent them …

  I call it a celebrity crush.

  It occurs when too many celebs
arrive at once and the TV crews and photographers are overwhelmed with panic at the possibility they are not going to get the regulation sound bites and photographs that are their birthright to accrue.

  Of course the whole point of walking any red carpet is to be photographed and/or interviewed, but logic has no place in this equation. I think it’s because the sheer volume of star power contained in a celebrity crush is sufficient to wipe the minds of every non-celeb present of all reason and induce in them a primal braying sound that I imagine was the last thing the Christians heard just before a very large member of the feline family caused them to shuffle off their mortal coil.

  If you are ever on a red carpet, even if there isn’t a celebrity crush, you should close your eyes for a minute, and I swear it sounds like you’re in a disaster film or on a ship that is sinking—screams of panic abound and yet nearly everyone looks gorgeous.

  Anyway, back to the celebrity crush. There isn’t much to do when they happen aside from put on a smile in case someone is taking a sneaky shot of you, and wait patiently for your turn to answer inane questions and scan the horde of paps while pretending both are totally natural things to do.

  Of late I have grown a little anarchic and have decided to just do the photos and skip the interviews! Yes, I know! Red Carpet Sacrilege! This first occurred at the Golden Globes where, during my first interview, I was asked to proffer my foot to a “shoecam,” and in that instant a voice inside told me it would be unwise to do any more interviews that day. Also, I knew there was a champagne bar at the end of the carpet where I would not only be able to guzzle some free bubbly but an animal rescue charity I had nominated would receive a thousand dollars for my doing so. It was really no contest.