 And so let us start with the best, let us welcome to the stage Jessica Haggadon and Miss Robbie McCauley herself to share with us an excerpt from Tina Town. Would you like to come? We're just winging it. Yeah, because it comes first. Yes. Thinking about the assassin in need. Just fantasize. Which is something we all have a right to. It's really just an image being artistic about the assassination where it could be. In a meeting for the international singer or other, you could go blink, bang, shut the door. Shut the door. Just a thought. Just an image thinking about the assassin in need. I mean, they think of the darndest things. Why can't we? Thinking about the assassin in need. Can think what I want to, can't I? Thinking about the assassin in need. Dog. The world. Dog on. Underfoot. Underwheel. Taxis dog for dog. Dog on. Taxi down the runway, doggie. Dog on brownie, the tall black man in the brown suit. Had the decency not to cry. On Broadway. On Broadway. Not the Broadway of the drifters. A Broadway of spectacular cakes. And beaded baby ball gowns. Underfoot. Underwheel. Hot dog. Avenue of organza and pearl teardrops. The avenue of satin. He had the decency to keep the dog. To keep the dog from being squished. To keep the dog, he dragged it on the daily news. On the daily news. On the Broadway of IRS. And crack deals. Crack deals. On the Broadway of caping mouths. I hailed the taxi. He hit the dog going downtown. I hailed the taxi going downtown. He hit the dog again going downtown. Going downtown. Dog on. Dog on. Dog. The dog was big. I left the Philippines. Believing I would not need my recipe for dog pie much. I left knowing my taste for cognac would grow. Don't step in the doo-doo. There's a fire raging behind you. As we chat and the telephone rings. I didn't say a word. Wah-yur. I love the way she says that word. Say it again. Wah-yur to catastrophe. You keep moving your lips in the silence. She's frantic with worry. Don't step in the doo-doo, children. She warns before hanging up the phone. There's a fire raging behind you. Right there outside the window. A TV screen. Your eyes smolder in flames. I left the Philippines. You were the recipe for dog barbecue. And my secret sauce. The delicious smell of singed flesh on a Sunday afternoon. Oh, God of lecture memories. Running dogs and old men's humiliations. I moved up town to know my people. And suck up the eyes of the dog dreams. Dog dreams that shoot me raw. Man's best friend and a woman's demise. We learn to suck bones. Stayed cheerful. French poodle scones. Grover retrievers. Guard dogs and schnauzers. With long ears. Contests for running and singing and barking. Loss of identities. Useless tags. And falling hair. Yes, there's a lot more. I wrote this song a while back. There are many words and I'm hoping they will all come to me. Yes. If they don't, you'll know the feeling behind them is here. But I offer this song in contradiction to the last. An idea that Robbie taught me a great deal about contradiction. And the song essentially urges us to continue by reminding us that when we lose something, when we lose someone, when a period falls into the past, it is sometimes dangerous to go digging for it. The dirt was cool place inside. Swept overhead as solar rays bounce off my back. As feathers filled, horizon stretching and less blue. I went digging, forcing fingers past the cutting edges. Sharp and stinging, pulling, scraping downward. As the thirsty earth absorbed my blood. Yet I did not turn on mixed gently with my sweat. Blushing as my eyes grew heavy with regrets. I went digging for you. What is my lower easts? And will you be the mayor of it? Mr. Nicky. I'm from the city of Carrizo and I work at La Mama Theatre which was founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, a great African American force of nature. So yes, I think I have to mention that. And yes, I have a plan, don't worry. And since, I just have to say, I think I would like to say that since January 20th at the club at La Mama, which I'm very honored and grateful to run, it's our cabaret space at La Mama, and I'm the curer, the programmer and curator. And I've been reading this before every show. It's called The First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. That's our first amendment. We're here this morning and this afternoon and some of you weren't, so I just want to say to our honoree, Robbie McCauley. Robbie McCauley taught me how to speak. So there you go. In this world, extra people, I'm glad there is you. The first piece that I've published and it was called Asian Boys. Robbie and Jessica were a great inspiration for that and Lori Carlos directed it. So this is what I call my, this is a very young piece, okay? And I used to call it my signature piece, so. But I think it's okay. Quite middle class neighborhood. Trees lining the sidewalk. Little red house. You don't have enough saved yet, but you make the down payment for the mortgage. Stability and security. Mama was a school teacher and dad trained as a nurse. Men don't do that. Your daddy's a nurse? I say yeah. And before that, he was a Pullman porter on the commuter railroad. He probably served gin and tonics to your dad. Mama gave up her school teaching in the islands to travel with my dad to this country. Is that your grandmother? No, she's my mom. Land of the free and home of the brave. When I was growing up, they'd speak their language, their dialect to each other. Ilocano. The young ones would sit around and make fun and imitate their elders and the way they spoke. Everybody! Time for diner! The kids, my cousins, would repeat this in unison and crack up rolling on the floor and laughing hysterically. Speak English. Speak English. Be an American. You were born here. That's why we came here. So you could reap the benefits of our hard work and labor. Go to school. Be the best. Be proud. Be proud. Better with the whites. Be humble. My mother said to me, don't ever let them put you down. No wonder we kids got skitso and psycho. We had to beat our little white friends at their own game. Oh, look at your nose. You have a fine nose. Not flat like your father's family. Study harder. Play harder. Win them over. Make it big. But don't rock the boat. Quiter than white. Clean for Jean. Be James Dean. Dreams of Hollywood, Hollywood and Vine. Everyone knows that Filipino kids know their movies and their music better than they do. Quiter than white. What? He's not going to be a doctor like his uncle Tony. He's not going to be a lawyer like his cousin Teddy, who went to Yale. How is he going to make money and a decent living? I want to sing like Smokey oh so sweetly and fine that aching falsetto sound that makes you know how sweet love is. And Prince singing how come you don't call me anymore? You know you could have been some candy the way you swept me off my hood had been a well and the way you sang those Filipino love songs to me when I was a child teach me your language and sing me your music. What color am I, Mama? Black, white, Latino, Filipino, Asian, yellow, brown, gold, my sister, Pamela. Robbie advised me as a theater offensive and all day long I've been feeling at home and I'm so grateful. I came here wait no I need your pin. I came here thinking that I was coming to do a presentation and that I was coming to honor Robbie and I didn't understand that right after that I was going to be healed that I was coming here and I was going to get healed and all day long it's just gone to that place that I thank you begun to relax celebrate the marriage equality ruling I had just begun feeling with Obama I was watching Ali in trouble off the ropes delivering to his opponent the rope adobe my father's eyes excitement I was just beginning to breathe air feeling exhilarated at images of Joe Biden and President Obama running down halls at the White House with rainbow flags like boys with kites soaring I was just beginning to forgive that's of my brothers to AIDS not forget there should still be tribunals for them and every woman abused by the medical system I was just beginning to turn a corner on Mike Brown, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner the massacre at AME and not to think of it all every day and then the police killed this young black girl in custody in Texas claimed she committed suicide and I remember we're a war nation in war times I imagine how James Bayard Nina Felt seeing a nation turn its dog's teeth gas, hoses, bullets on children adults, humans I can't stop thinking about Steve Beko his battered face they say he hung himself too the world's outrage who will pray now for us America I want to know the ending how it's all gonna turn out the aftermath of a Trump presidency don't turn to Analysts Wall Street or CNN for an accurate portrait of where it's all going what it's gonna look like reread Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower set in California around 2027 people in fear behind walls gated communities a woman raped so much she can't stand gun violence addiction fires that can scarcely be put out people scavenging for food trying not to become prey compassion is gone the main character is named Lauren is a hyper empath she can feel others pain which I think is a metaphor for artists whatever you think of Marina Abramovic her show title is right the artist is was always present from the beginning of time until now look again at the Hunger Games the districts are actually concentration camps with gray garb and bar fences that nod to Nazi Germany humans are pitted against each other to survive sometime after Trayvon Martin was shot I finally understood something deep about Star Wars I've always rooted for the good guys always and once I heard a friend at the movies rooting for poison ivy, Batman and Batgirl's Nemesis and I was shocked that anybody could root for a bad girl but after Trayvon was killed by George Zimmerman who walked free I finally understood what could turn a character's eyes dark you could become so disillusioned and then I understood in the Star Wars franchise what made Darth Vader Vader I felt that again after Trump's election no more green blue light only gray dark grab white bones war last week I worked with a class I had met before on the subject of Black Lives Matter I repeated something Greg said to a group of students what if the only justice that we have right now is here in this room one student said well nothing ever changes so I responded by asking them are you telling me that you can't change they were all surprised, shocked by my question at the end of the class I asked well what have you learned today and a black girl answered as if she were channeling Octavia herself change it's up to us to just be clear on the Orlando shooting it wasn't ISIS or Islam that licensed that man to walk into a gay bar and massacre those white and gay men of color it was America with their heinous gun laws that allowed any white or white skin man with mental health problems to purchase weapons of war machine guns with minimal background check meanwhile black and brown people can't walk through a neighborhood to buy candy survive a routine traffic stop without being murdered no, he wasn't trained in hills of Afghanistan he didn't learn bomb making tricks from the Taliban it was here in America he learned with our apartheid policies separate and unequal, separate schools separate bathrooms, separate, separate, separate that bred a rapid repressed homophobe it was from demagogues like Trump that report building walls and keeping people out and inciting fear it was America in the bush clan that clues you can lie and kill and get away with it that certain populations were disposable I've seen these massacres before it was when black and brown gays were dying rapidly of AIDS only then guns were indifference guns were in the hands of every American guns were in the hands of politicians, of doctors in a system that hated queers I have seen it before this killing in the zigzag scars of women poets who died of breast cancer in institutions that still claim their legacy like many I have searched the hallways for justice I have paced up and down I beg to be heard asked for simple treatment for simple problems gaslighted, bankrupted, run around only to find out in America a woman's womb is big business a seamless killing before it happens everyday reality shows teaching us to step on and crush each other to get ahead a television that shows someone actually slicing Gaddafi's jugular I left so many places, communities because of safety concerns Seiku Sundiata that beloved, our beloved poet died in the emergency room without health insurance from a heart attack in Lily Ninja that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful dancer went blind and I could go on but my brother Esik Temple is calling to me and telling me, as he did in the crisis so long ago, telling us to wrap our arms around each other and hold tight 16 years old from the suburbs, Boston I'd go into the city shopping with my cousin and friends we'd venture into Boston Commons, the park there were hustlers there, I didn't know then with a set up table they played some sort of game with shells hid money under a shell or a plastic cover, moved their hands real quick they made it purposefully look so easy naive, 16 years old I bet, $50 a lot of money for me then they made it look so easy you just had to pick the right one of course it was rate I lost, felt dizzy, sipped to my stomach lost my gaze on Tuesday night after this election I felt the same way, heist it in a shell walking outside on Wednesday in my neighborhood a white woman that nobody ever speaks was crying and asked what do we do I answered earnestly a teacher and artist professor who always tries I don't know later I walked up the street a white man in an SUV with a window down drove by, he wore an expensive business suit, had a big brown cigar like when babies are born expensive, like seen only in gangster films like Goodfellas or on the Sopranos after it healed he looked happy and smug and that's when I realized the Trump presidency is a hustler's game Boulders Club, players only Pip Paradise Wise with teased hair and lots of plastic surgery on the white BET they made it all they made it all look so easy like a choice who knew the American dream was a side hustle for big businessmen with all their ugly red white blue striped flag merchandising available at Walmart Target, I'll never buy into again who knew freedom was a marketing idea consumer product, hallucinatory drug hooked up as in some rovian as in Carl's type of laboratory sweatshop, maintained by the architects of apartheid, freedom like air if you're white and male and rich enough to keep breathing I started to, today I started to cry as I wrote to my students knowing that in everything so far I have tried to protect them and realizing that there are places in this world that even my maternal hands can't reach in Poland, the Warsaw ghetto against a Nazi fascist regime on southern plantations in fields in Haiti on shores of Africa uprising the 60s, the streets James, Nina Bayard, Miriam June, Nikki Lorraine, Audrey Paradis, Pulitz teachers always uprising everything comes from sugar in me people don't talk about the pain how the immunity is affected how how diabetes hurts how it hurts your you know what, when you're a woman and your legs of course and your head and the Ohio hotel on tour when I woke up in hell but I couldn't quite remember what P was I didn't know what I was now it's not just me who's identified all these levels of consciousness all I knew was the walls extractions in space and silver strands of light and falling back right on the bathroom wall later they told me the nurse diabetic counselor told me that when you what was the adrenaline was just the adrenaline it kept me hitting walls falling down and getting back up and that light that light consciousness adrenaline connected the little light in the bathroom shaking the cold my brain ate crackers and cheese my sugar went a bit woke up so hard the next night at a show and had to go to the hospital I was scared I felt like I'd been through hell hitting the wall so hard I broke up I broke over the rheumatized arthritis that yeah they told me later all from sugar jazz is hard rock is easier more or less robbies diabetes sugar, diabetes this is mine my white diabetes which is very different than people of color diabetes which Robin went on greatly and of course it's the whole medical health care system in this country that discriminates against people of color and anybody else that they like to exclude is pretty much just about everybody right now except it'll be 2% to 1% what I'm going to call them howl so here I was in LA one night on tour I was in a little housing artist thing and I woke up and I was drenched I was like wet from head to toe was sweat and who I was who I was walked into the center of Lucy Lucy you know Lucy was a little Jewish girl and my father-in-law who looked at the leaflets told me that Jews as he grabbed my ass are just niggers turned inside out now he didn't say hike he thought Jew was bad enough we are all children of Lucy and I feel connected to every one of you even though I didn't even see you so what I'd like to do is I'd like to just plug my pants and tell you I would like to ask all of you a question just give you real preparation for this oh yes this wonderful phrase that Robby has in her play life is more than biography sugar more than sweet sugar's a big chocolate salty racist rigmarole I'd like to ask I don't want to divide the oh my god I'm not going to be able to see anybody I'm going to divide this house into four sections here and right here and right here and over here so what I'd like to do is ask you guys a simple question and I would like for you to give me one answer from each section you can just shout it out one word answer to the question which is not good or bad can't use good or bad okay just a one word response to this question eh do you think of the current administration in the united states what was that sucks sucks okay great I heard something over here it what fuck sucks and fucks I just keep going okay two more insane okay one more degenerate sucks fucks insane okay I just found out today this is a real song I thought it was just a little verse but I have to make up the melody because I don't know the song so please ignorance but I'm pretty good improviser all my life has been war with shit war against my body from the inside out my heart and soul are in the light of attack and like any war it sucks I can't even war never known was it might be a song or a singer it might be a piece of literature it might be a film something that opens up the sky for you if you have not for those of us who have I think we can all attest he is like no other Mr. Carl so just so you know at the memorial at the memorial St. Mark's Church Laurie Carlos I wrote that piece for her this is a this is for you and this is not a memorial it's just a obviously you're here and I hope you will stay here but I'm just considering it the part two I am watching working cotton battle working minds and all the time command breasts my face dusted camwood powder bale soft with annulative solar at my neck smoking the wood pipe I am all the time wearing many skirts and mutton sleeves becoming all the time whose wife was is sickly all the time was healthy complaining and sleeping I am all the time doing the work of working and walking with ostrich shells my feet on fragments of dark narrows sitting alone sucking fruit meat beneath the ball doctrine tree cotton, cattle pipe, woman selling peppers, yellow cakes all the time knowing my story bracelets, beckoning on mats of the pepper silk straw amidst oil for cooking stones all the time I am amidst men trading flint and stone all the time I was with tobacco and salt and knives and liquor filled hose all the time my fingers cracked and dry a range of mango sweet and green all the time fresh sweet asiat oil all the time there was fever grass large pit pair all the time palm nuts and papa and yams and cod fish plum pudding all the time before the storm no more than a few soldiers no more than a few others marching into the interior insisting on a repudiation of all post war treaties with us the people all of us all the time I am climbing through hills with flags tied around our necks as natives gathering around us all the time loudly voicing agreement demonstration quickly turning all the time violent all the time within minutes all the time spinning into the web plowing through on horseback on foot all the time like troops all the time I am region all the time I am revolted in the midst of uprisings all the time my body curled in the grass on the stage like the early bloom of angels all the time fire laying on the idle trails of every road I travel all the time catching hold to scrub brush and weeds all the time raining me with embers all the time there was fire that began to smoke and smoke multiplying itself into a nation around 100 feet above ground into a dense and oily universe colonizing the air all the time it was expanded and water all the time there were plateaus all the time plateaus of a heated base twisted away from the flame that produced it wrenched itself out of its blood orange rule and region higher inflated each emission becoming greater than the last from a distance all the time it was one enormous body all the time my body my spit my walking my flames shifting westward urging all the time running from the charge of all the time leaping into the wall of all the time emerging on the other side all the time I was facing rivers all the time I was netted into it and became each other you in ash all the time I was unrelinquished by midnight all the time by dawn all the time I was fire until the next morning an early afternoon and only by dusk had it begun its full belly dressed only by dusk was there an unreachable calm only by dusk all the time had night passed only by dusk was there a slow assumption of a slow being and a slow loneliness a vibration stronger than the hopeless better of nations with no clear way to repay the sum dodging death to no avail and all the time there was you all of you slipping over the wind that blows in from the heath advancing nightly stepping down on the oracing both sides over the razor wire fence through me to you all the time there was all of you walking through wood-slap walls of steel-cold hands on ocean currents yawning and a losing Tory cipher your song and me doing this dance that I do lost in my troubled sleep all the time I was all the time you are all of you I do all the time it is yours I give it to you take it from me