I started this project with The Magus by John Fowles (1966). Then, I’m sure, we were enamored of the tricky plot and the satanic details. Rereading it in 2012, I still find it valuable because it explains why the men of my generation were such emotionally unavailable dicks.

I’m only a third of the way into Steppenwolf, but it’s already clear that I used the book to examine what the hell was wrong with me then, and wrong with my friends. The copy I’m reading is the very copy I read back then, and it’s underlined and the margins are scribbled with “Sartre,” “Nietzsche” “Brian,” “Peter” — and the names of all my boyfriends if you have to know. We identified with Steppenwolf the tortured loner, too weird to excel in society and too wounded to escape the bourgeoisie. Now it’s clear the Steppenwolf and the rest of us just needed the right medication. But in 1929, Hesse suggested that Steppenwolves take refuge in humor.

I had to stop and write about this because in between old books I am also thinking about comedians and what they are like. Think Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Louis CK, Larry David, Dennis Leary, Sarah Silverman, Darrell Hammond, Lewis Black and anybody you know who is chronically, savagely funny. They are like the Steppenwolf. I’m going to quote a long passage from the book, so here goes:

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From Steppenwolf:

“The lives of these infinitely numerous persons make no claim to the tragic; but they live under an evil star in a quite considerable affliction; and in this hell their talents ripen and bear fruit. The few who break free seek their reward in the unconditioned and go down in splendor. They wear the thorn crown and their number is small.

“The others, however, who remain in the fold and from whose talents the bourgeoisie reaps much gain, have a third kingdom left open to them, an imaginary and yet a sovereign world, humor. The lone wolves who know no peace, these victims of unceasing pain to whom the urge for tragedy has been denied and who can never break through the starry space, who feel themselves summoned thither and yet cannot survive in its atmosphere — for them is reserved, provided suffering has made their spirits tough and elastic enough, a way of reconcilement and an escape into humor.

“Humor has always something bourgeois in it, although the true bourgeois is incapable of understanding it. In its imaginary realm the intricate and many-faceted ideal of all Steppenwolves finds its realization. Here it is possible not only to extol the saint and the profligate in one breath and to make the poles meet, but to include the bourgeois, too, in the same affirmation. Now it is possible to be possessed by God and to affirm the sinner, and vice versa, but it is not possible for either saint or sinner (nor for any of the other unconditioned) to affirm as well that lukewarm mean, the bourgeois.

“Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of the tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though “one possessed nothing,” to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious.”

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That’s why I’m so thankful for comedy. It stands on the edge of the void, looks down into its horror, and comes back with the jokes.

Linda Frye Burnham, 2012

I was lucky to present George Carlin at Highways Performance Space in the early ’90s. Carlin did a routine that punctured the political correctness of our extremely hip audience and brought them to an astonished silence. (I wish I could remember its context!) In the green room, my daughter Jill and I were able to thank George and tell him what he meant to our family.

In 1973 my marriage ended and that split our family into two homes, one in L.A. and one in Laguna Beach. My kids and I spent a lot of time in the car, listening to comedy albums: “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him” by Firesign Theatre (1968), “Let’s Get Small” (1977) and “A Wild and Crazy Guy” (1978) by Steve Martin, anything by Tom Lehrer, and, most memorable of all, “Class Clown” (1974) and “A Place for My Stuff” (1984) by George Carlin. We listened to them over and over again. In those days, we four desperate drifters needed all the laughs we could get.

We listened to Carlin’s stuff obsessively till we could do whole routines verbatim. Thirty years later all of us can still do all of the Seven Dirty Words you can never say on television: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. (Raise your hand if you can do this with your mother.) Parts of these great works are still in our everyday family vocabulary. In group conversation, our timing is impeccable. Because of this training, Jill can call you up after an episode of “30 Rock” and do an entire Jack Donaghy monologue at full speed.

One of the greatest benefits of this interpersonal experience has been the readiness of my children to accept and share my twisted career. In 1976 I moved into a furniture loft in downtown L.A. with a performance artist and two years later I started a performance art magazine, High Performance. The third issue featured a cover shot of a performance by Hermann Nitsch in which a blindfolded man drinks blood. I was joined in 1982 by another sarcastic visionary, Steven Durland, and among our many border crossings was the publication of the first art magazine issue about AIDS.

In 1989, with gay performance artist Tim Miller, I founded Highways, a performance art space in Santa Monica that became a stage for artists confronting racism, sexism and other oppressions. It also became a mecca for gay activists and the locus for gay protest rallies, raves and performances by the likes of the fabulous Annie Sprinkle. My kids did not shrink from supporting these ventures and in fact Jill moved in and became my second in command.

Yes, there was some comedy involved in all this, but mostly it was serious intellectual and aesthetic business. I believe the bravery of artists like George Carlin prepared all of us to be ready for anything, to be able to face up to that which shocked and challenged us and to draw on empathy when confronted with despair and hopelessness. We had a kind of sensitive armor that many others didn’t have. And we still do. And we’re still laughing. When we are together it’s inevitable that we will sit down for an Eddie Izzard marathon or a couple episodes of “Louie.”

We’re good together. So it was double great when George Carlin showed up for our extended family at Highways. He let us give him a lot of hugs.

Linda Frye Burnham, 2012

I don’t know where the artificial stops
and the real starts.
The nicer I am,
the more people think I’m lying.
It’s not what you are that counts,
it’s what they think you are.
Remember, they’ve never seen you before in their life.

They always say time changes things,
but actually you have to change them
yourself.
You can’t make them change if they don’t want to,
just like when they do want to,
you can’t stop them.
Or is life a series of images that change
as they repeat themselves?
The channels switch, but it’s all television.

Sex is more exciting on the screen
and between the pages
than between the sheets.
People should fall in love with their eyes closed.
I believe in low lights and trick mirrors.
You have to be willing to get happy about nothing.
Sex is the biggest nothing of all time. So what.

That’s one of my favorite things to say.
So what. So what.
It takes a long time to learn that trick,
but once you do,
you never forget.
I never fall apart because I never fall together.

Life is so quick
and it goes away too quickly.
The machinery is always going.
Even when you sleep.
It doesn’t matter how slow you go
so long as you do not stop.
The mystery is gone
but the amazement is just starting.

From the words of Andy Warhol

Linda Frye Burnham 2012

Eldon Frye as Alred E. Neuman, by Eldon Frye

We would not let our enemies have guns,
why should we let them have ideas?
We don’t let them have ideas,
why would we let them have guns?

Death is the solution to all problems.
No man – no problem.
One death is a tragedy;
one million is a statistic.
You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.
Everyone imposes his own system
as far as his army can reach.
The Pope? How many divisions has he got?

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.
And gaiety is the most outstanding feature
of the Soviet Union.

                                    From the words of Joseph Stalin

Linda Frye Burnham 2012

Stalin, 1902

But how about cutting the re-bop?

I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof.

We all live in a house on fire.
Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray
of infinitely varied narcotics,
even while it prepares us for
the fatal operation.

Luxury is the wolf at the door.
Rhinestones are next door to glass.
A high station in life is earned by
the gallantry with which
appalling experiences are survived with grace.

Oh, you beautiful, weak people
who give up with such grace.
Grown-ups don’t hang up on life!
Life is no damn football game.
Life isn’t just a bunch of high spots.
To be free is to have achieved your life.
You got pain, at least
you know you are alive.

I tell what ought to be truth.
Nothing is more powerful
than the odor of mendacity!
Mendacity’s a system that we live in.
Liquor’s one way out and death’s the other.
And booze goes fast in hot weather.
Truth is the one thing
I never have resisted.

But all cruel people describe themselves
as paragons of frankness.

Oh look, we have created enchantment!
And you?
You’re gonna miss me.

                                    From the words of Tennessee Williams

Linda Frye Burnham 2012

I just hate to be a thing.
I want to be wonderful.
I’m trying to prove
that I’m a person.
All I demand is
my right to twinkle.

Fame will go by
and, so long, I’ve had you, fame.
I always knew that you were fickle,
but that’s not where I live.

I guess I am a fantasy.
But I have feelings too.
I am still human.
And I know from life that
one can’t love another,
ever,
really.

What do I wear in bed?
Chanel No. 5,
of course.

                                    From the words of Marilyn Monroe

Linda Frye Burnham, 2012

Be a dumbsaint of the mind,
an old teahead of time,
no fear or shame
in yr experience,
its dignity.

Keep track of every day,
accepting loss forever:
the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
of the individual,
the bottomless true story of the world,
the eye within the eye.

Love the holy contour of yr life,
the jewel center of interest
emblazoned in yr morning.

Submit to everything in tranced fixation,
dreaming upon the object before you.

Work from the pithy middle eye,
swimming in the language sea.

The crazier the better.

Try never to get drunk
outside your own house.

                                                From the words of Jack Kerouac

Linda Frye Burnham, 2012