Regional Oral History Office University of California the Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Greg Walloch

Writer and Performer

Interviews conducted by Esther Ehrlich in 2004

Copyright © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Greg Walloch, dated October 28, 2004. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Greg Walloch, “Writer and Performer” conducted by Esther Ehrlich in 2004, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2006.

Copy no. ___

Photo courtesy of Patricia Lugo Varela

Acknowledgments

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

vii

Table of Contents—Greg Walloch

Series History xxi

Interview History xxiii

Interview 1: October 26, 2004

Audiofile 1 1

Birth, family, ancestry—Growing up in a suburban neighborhood and its effects—Early memories—The alchemy of storytelling, invention and truth—Relationship with father— Formative influence of books and reading—Importance of music, romance with the radio, disc jockeys—Having cerebral palsy as a child and how family members reacted to and were effected by it—The "solo act" of being an artist—Transforming own life story into art

Audiofile 2 16

Elementary school, being mainstreamed and having experience in special education and how that relates to understanding differences, then and now—Response to people's reaction to disability, leading with heart/humanity—People's perception of difference—People with disabilities' assumptions about gay identity, the "costume" of identity—Being a high school student and bucking the status quo, currently questioning the political system in a post-9/11 climate— Studying improvisation at age sixteen and the importance of Denise Taylor, finding artistic community as a teenager and realizing that being an artist was feasible—College and not getting a degree—Exposure to Highways Performance Space and its profound influence—Finding community among artists in Venice Beach and finally feeling at home

Interview 2: October 27, 2004

Audiofile 3 29

Sexuality, coming out as a gay man within community of multicultural performance artists in the late eighties in Southern California, personal/political performance, relationship with parents during this time, creating family, coming out to family—More on relationship with father, attitudes regarding homosexuality/gay identity—Performers claiming their specific identities and labels as integral part of art work, claiming own identity as gay disabled man—First professional performance and its significance—Recent experience performing at a disability-related conference and being asked to remove gay content from show, bad behavior between different marginalized communities—Trajectory of performance career, mentors Denise Taylor, Ruth Zaporah, Tim Miller, performing at Highways Performance Space as a teenager, power of performance piece in underwear and reaction to scholarly critique of piece—Making a living viii

Audiofile 4 43

More on gay content in performance at disability conference—Feeling and learning from an audience—Becoming a professional performer and the business aspect of the work—Choosing to respond to people's intrusiveness in relation to disability—Reaction to Bill Shannon's work, comparison with own work—On low standards set for artists with disabilities, pop culture— Experience related to disability in workshop with Rachel Rosenthal—Decision to leave Los Angeles and move to New York in 1992, the Rodney King incident and LA riots—Network of support among artist friends—Importance of relationship with Ellie Covan of Dixon Place— Difference between artistic community in Los Angeles and New York, changes in artistic community over time, role of technology in relation to community-building—Flavor of performance venues in New York compared to Los Angeles—Performance schedule—"Breaking into the biz"—Self-definition as artist/performer

Interview 3: October 28, 2004

Audiofile 5 61

Experience, as child, of overhearing physical therapists' negative predictions—Questioning authority, "divine dissatisfaction," ornery nature, image and playing against type—Mishaps on stage—Disabled audience member's claim that he was denied access to show and the value of debating issue in public forum—Defining "the show"—Living Room Live comedy group, the value of spontaneity, learning how to bomb, members, touring, performing in bars—On gay audience/disabled audience—The power of venue and how it shapes perception of work— Attaching value to failure and success—Performing at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1994, popularity outside the United States, the importance of attending International Performance Art Day in Ireland—Motivating force of making a connection with other people, validating experience of comedy—Learning the business end of performing—Producing event in New York of diverse performers

Audiofile 6 79

Group dynamics in Living Room Live—Meeting other performers in New York—Core identity as solo performer—Association with the Moth, an urban storytelling event, and its impact on career, the "cake story"—Performing on The Howard Stern Show, material about Christopher Reeve and reflections on his life—Documentary, Keeping it Real: The Adventures of Greg Walloch, director's shaping of the story in terms of disability and gay identity, conflicting visions for the film and creative struggle with the director, issue with the title, gay production company's involvement, press and reviews ix

Audiofile 7 96

Creative process and the role of listening and watching, "ideal" audience reaction—Relationship to writing, creating work on the stage/on the page and how that process shifts over time—Role of discipline in creating work—More on business aspect of work and its rewards—Importance of trusting artistic voice—Lack of influence of imagined audience while creating work— Experience of making short films—Interest in continuing acting career—Secret desire to have a cooking show—Experience of being asked to play "more disabled" in an audition—Identity issues and speaking for the gay/disabled communities, importance of community—Relationship to the disability rights movement—Schism between feeling connected to others, as an artist, and feeling deeply alone, desire to be recognized fully rather than pigeon-holed as a gay, disabled performer

Audiofile 8 113

Performative element to the oral history interview—More on business aspect of being a performer and the issue of self-esteem, the expectation that performers will give their work away for free, learning how to be a negotiator—More on the importance of being part of a community of artists—Tour of bedroom, including memorabilia from career—Spalding Gray x xi

Artists with Disabilities Series History

If there was a country called disabled, I would be from there. I live disabled culture, eat disabled food, make disabled love, cry disabled tears, climb disabled mountains and tell disabled stories…

from “Disabled Country,” Neil Marcus, performance artist

Artists with disabilities, propelled by a powerful history rooted in the struggle for civil rights, have been creating a vibrant arts culture which embodies the individual and collective experience of disability and contributes to the artistic landscape of our nation. In June of 2004, the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, launched the Artists with Disabilities oral history project, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The project grew out of the Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement [DRILM] collection, which explores the social and political history of the disability rights movement from the 1960s to the present and includes two interviews with artists. [http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm]

Our primary goal was to document the lives and work of seminal artists in performance art and dance, providing a rich resource of interviews and documents for scholarly research, education, and general use. We planned to examine issues of relevance to the artistic community, including the ways in which artists with disabilities are expanding themes of identity and the body, central concerns in the performing arts. We also hoped to contribute to an understanding of the impact that the mainstream art scene has on those who, historically, have not been welcomed into it, as well as the role that artists with disabilities have had on artistic trends in the broader arts world.

In developing the project, we consulted with scholars and administrators in the arts, scholars in disability studies, artists, and members of the disability community. Our funding supported interviews with five artists, whom we chose in consultation with our advisors. All of the narrators are professional dancers or performance artists who draw on material from their own lives and whose work has made a significant contribution toward defining disability arts culture.

The interviews were videotaped. They took place in the narrators’ homes, except for the interview with Neil Marcus which was recorded at the Regional Oral History Office and was unique in that it utilized instant messaging technology to accommodate his disability. In addition to the standard oral history format, these interviews also include impromptu moments of the artists sharing their creative work, tours of the spaces where they make that work happen and, in the case of Lynn Manning, a visit to the judo class he teaches for blind and visually-impaired adults. xii

All of the interviews probe the artists’ formative influences, education/training, career trajectory, and creative process. They address a range of themes, including:

• the intersection of identities, specifically identities rooted in the body, in a particular place and time. What does it mean to be gay and disabled? African-American and blind? And how does being “seen,” living in the public eye as a performer, impact these identities?

• networks of artistic access and achievement. Who helps whom gain entry into the art world and why? How do these informal networks work?

• ideas of normality. What is a “normal” body? What is “normal” art?

• the formation of a disability arts culture. How is the work of professional artists with disabilities creating a disability arts culture? How does their work relate to the more mainstream art world?

Several of the artists in this project are currently making arrangements to have their historically significant materials, including personal papers, writings, photographs, and recordings of performances, archived in the Bancroft Library.

I’d like to thank Ann Lage and the DRILM team for their belief in this project and their tremendous support. I also want to offer my deep appreciation to the artists who so generously shared their stories.

The Regional Oral History Office was established in 1954 to augment through tape-recorded memoirs the Library's materials on the history of California and the West. The office is under the direction of Richard Cándida Smith and the administrative direction of Charles B. Faulhaber, James D. Hart Director of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. The catalogues of the Regional Oral History Office and many oral histories on line can be accessed at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/.

Esther Ehrlich, Project Manager/Interviewer Artists with Disabilities Oral History Project Regional Oral History Office University of California, Berkeley xiii

Interview History

Greg Walloch first began to discover the power of his artistic voice while still a teenager, and now, in his thirties, has achieved wide recognition as a writer and performer. Cutting his teeth within the performance art scene in Southern California in the mid-eighties, he then moved to New York City in 1992, where he continued to hone his craft. Born with cerebral palsy, Greg Walloch weaves his experience as a disabled man and as a gay man into his work. His solo show, White Disabled Talent, has toured extensively within the United States and abroad. He has a range of film credits to his name and co-produced and starred in the film, F**k the Disabled, a concert/documentary film about his life.

I met with Greg in his home in Harlem on October 26, 2004 for the first of our three interview sessions. Since Greg shares his apartment with several roommates, we decided to conduct our interview in his bedroom. Within minutes of the interview, Greg and I slipped into an easy familiarity. Greg was expressive, both verbally and emotionally, occasionally surprising himself by how stirred up he became while recounting certain experiences in his life. The background sound of his roommate taking a shower, and then listening to music, the visits and occasional meows of Greg’s cat, all added to the feeling of informality and intimacy. As we were nearing the end of the last interview session, Greg seemed to step into the role of the performer aiming towards a grand finale, while I found myself feeling like an appreciative audience member. With the camera off, we both reflected on the performative nature of those final moments and decided to turn the camera back on, resume the interview, and continue to investigate our remaining topics. We concluded the interview with Greg offering a tour of his bedroom, pointing out objects from his life and career that had special meaning to him.

I audited the transcript for accuracy and sent it to Greg for his review. He added just a few corrections and clarifications.

Esther Ehrlich Interviewer January 2006 xiv

Interview 1: October 26, 2004 Begin Audiofile 1

1-00:00:00 Ehrlich: So, it’s Tuesday October 27 [correct date is October 26, 2004] and I’m in—

Walloch: West Harlem.

Ehrlich: West Harlem, interviewing Greg Walloch. So, let’s start at the beginning. Where and when were you born?

Walloch: I was born in San Bernardino, California and it was July 8, 1970. My family never lived there, but I was born in a hospital there. And I have the same birthday as Beck, the singer Beck, so I think that’s kind of funny.

1-00:01:08 Ehrlich: Are there stories about your birth that have been passed down to you, that you know about?

1-00:01:20 Walloch: Not any great sort of legendary story about my birth. Nothing particular that I can remember, in those terms.

1-00:01:34 Ehrlich: Are there other terms?

1-00:01:37 Walloch: Oh, I don’t know. Just in the way that you hear people say, “Oh, when you were born,” and there’s this big story.

1-00:01:43 Ehrlich: Yes.

1-00:01:43 Walloch: So I don’t really recall any stories in particular about my birth.

1-00:01:50 Ehrlich: And in terms of your CP [cerebral palsy], do you know, was that related to a birth trauma or—?

1-00:02:03 Walloch: Well, I was several months premature. I think I was two months or so premature, and I think that had a lot to do with my cerebral palsy. But I don’t know if it was related specifically to any kind of trauma, per se.

1-00:02:27 Ehrlich: So who was in your family? In your nuclear family?

1-00:02:29 Walloch: Well, there’s my mother and father, and then I have a brother who is three years older than myself.

1-00:02:35 Ehrlich: And what about extended family?

1-00:02:40 Walloch: There is a collection of my aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, cousins. I wouldn’t say that we had a particularly close extended family. I mean, I know who they are, and I’ve been in touch with them and things like that, but we just weren’t the type of family to have these big, like, annual gatherings and things like that. So, our extended family seemed somewhat splintered.

1-00:03:17 Ehrlich: Were they in the same geographical location?

1-00:03:21 Walloch: Not particularly. My parents’ parents had passed away when I was quite young, so I think that has a lot to do with that.

1-00:03:38 Ehrlich: On both sides? So you didn’t grow up with any grandparents?

1-00:03:40 Walloch: I mean, I grew up with memories of my grandma, on my father’s side. But then, no, I didn’t really know any other grandparents besides them.

1-00:03:55 Ehrlich: What about the ethnic background—where were your grandparents born? Do you know?

1-00:03:58 Walloch: Well, my father, I think, has roots in Michigan, and my mother in Mississippi, I believe. I don’t really know a lot about that history.

1-00:04:23 Ehrlich: So you don’t know generations back?

1-00:04:26 Walloch: I don’t. I wish I was more familiar with it. It might be something for me to explore, long down the line in my work. I mean, it would be really interesting to look into my family.

1-00:04:41 Ehrlich: To the ancestry?

1-00:04:41 Walloch: Sure.

1-00:04:46 Ehrlich: So, you’re white. You don’t have a connection with a particular, you know, "My people came from Scotland” or—?

1-00:04:53 Walloch: Well, Walloch, the last name “Walloch” is Scottish in origin, I believe. And I’ve also been told it’s German, as well. But there is some Finnish background in the family tree. German, Scottish, all that sort of Euro background.

1-00:05:24 Ehrlich: But no particular stories that you know of?

1-00:05:27 Walloch: Not really, it’s interesting. Not really, I have to say. I don’t really know a lot of, sort of, family lineage.

1-00:05:38 Ehrlich: So tell me a little bit about the neighborhood you grew up in. It was Redlands, right?

1-00:05:43 Walloch: Yeah. I lived in Redlands, California, which is between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, and it was pretty suburban in terms of tract homes and not particularly completely massively populated. I think it is more so now. It’s like in Los Angeles, the spread keeps happening. People keep moving. But, yeah, pretty suburban upbringing, in a sense.

1-00:06:29 Ehrlich: What was the class background of people in your neighborhood? If you had to assess it?

1-00:06:39 Walloch: Well, like any neighborhood I think, it ran the gamut, but I would say mostly in my neighborhood it was middle class to upper middle class, but pretty middle class and generally white. Like, I didn’t really realize how white Redlands, California was until I moved to Los Angeles, and then later until I moved to New York, because New York is so culturally diverse. And that’s what’s amazing about it. You’re exposed to every religion, culture, idea in New York City all the time. And so, then going back and visiting my home town, I realized how white it was.

1-00:07:33 Ehrlich: And when you were living it, you didn’t obviously have that same awareness?

1-00:07:38 Walloch: I had somewhat of an awareness that it was definitely suburban and definitely had kind of—I don’t want to say an oppressive element, because that makes it sound really terrible, but there was some element floating in the air that was interesting, palpable, that you could feel it. But then there were other parts, other surrounding areas in California that were even more so, like Orange County and things like that.

1-00:08:08 Ehrlich: Can you say more of what that palpable, hanging feeling was?

1-00:08:16 Walloch: [pause] Just that kind of very suburban life. And while there are some niceties or cushion around that, there’s also some oppressive stuff, you know.

1-00:08:49 Ehrlich: Like, within your own family?

1-00:08:51 Walloch: Not necessarily within my own family but just sort of a culture, something hanging in the air, like a culture hanging in the air that’s not quite comfortable with itself. But it’s sort of projecting a certain comfortability, but it’s not ringing true all the time, I guess.

1-00:09:13 Ehrlich: So there’s a kind of “as-if.”

1-00:09:14 Walloch: Yeah. Sure. I don’t know. I suppose it sounds very New Yorky and artisty and snotty to be like, “Oh well there’s this suburban culture and people were this way,” but I guess it just depends on your perspective and where you are. It’s weird, sometimes I find myself living in a really urban environment in New York City and the wear and tear of that on a daily basis. There’s part of me that really likes Target, you know what I mean? So, there’s part of me that is weirdly comforted by the mall, but also totally unnerved by it. That’s a really real thing for me. I have this very real—like that sort of mall culture or that superstore culture—I have this very real anxiety reaction to it, which is interesting. And I think it comes from how I grew up.

1-00:10:28 Ehrlich: What happens?

1-00:10:31 Walloch: I have a physical reaction. I mean, if I’m in a place like an outlet mall or some big corporatized thing, I get really panicky, I find it really uncomfortable. But part of me at the very beginning is a little comforted in that I find it upsetting. It’s an interesting neuroses that I have, that I’ve noticed in my thirties. I’m kind of unnerved by the kind of Gap culture.

1-00:11:10 Ehrlich: And it’s obviously a connection to your past.

1-00:11:13 Walloch: Oh, yeah, sure. As most neurotic stuff is, for sure. So there’s something about that whole thing that is slightly comforting and then completely unnerving at the same time. I don’t think a lot of people understand it because we are supposed to love shopping, we’re supposed to really enjoy it, but I do have this sort of neurotic anxiety reaction towards that whole thing.

1-00:11:44 Ehrlich: Is your family still in Redlands?

1-00:11:45 Walloch: My parents are; they’re separated and they’re both still in the area.

1-00:11:50 Ehrlich: And your brother?

1-00:11:52 Walloch: My brother lives in New York City and he’s lived here maybe about three years, and before that a couple of other places. He’s also in the arts. He’s a photographer and pretty successful at his chosen profession. And it’s exciting to have him here. He lives in Brooklyn and we’re pretty far aflung from each other, but it’s good to have family.

1-00:12:20 Ehrlich: Focusing back on early childhood, do you have an earliest memory or earliest memories?

1-00:12:31 Walloch: There is this story, and it’s one of those things, and that’s the thing about storytelling, being a storyteller myself, is the power of stories and how if they’re retold enough times they become true, whether they happened exactly that way or not, so whether this is my memory or whether this is what was retold to me so many times—. When I was two years old, I was in the back of our station wagon, and out of nowhere I started to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and I said it all the way through. I was really young, you know, that’s kind of young, I think, to be doing that and I remember my parents kind of stopping and being really shocked. I think I learned it from Romper Room or something like that, just the repetition day after day of seeing it over and over again. Also maybe it’s a performative thing, like maybe wanting to emulate what I was seeing on television.

1-00:13:39 Ehrlich: And also having a sensitivity to words and language.

1-00:13:42 Walloch: Sure, absolutely. I have a lot of memories like that about, you know, I did this film and I tell this story in the film I did, where I was in a church play and I think I’m playing a dog and there’s this scenario where the baby Jesus is there and I’m supposed to bring attention to something and no one gave me any instruction on the line. I was a little kid and all of a sudden the script [said] “bark, bark” and instead of barking I just said the words “bark, bark.” I was in front of the church congregation and it was funny, like people reacted because I said it other than it had been intended. Unknowingly.

1-00:14:36 Ehrlich: That’s in your documentary.

1-00:14:39 Walloch: In the documentary. So that’s an early memory, as well. I mean, where people kind of reacted to something that was like performing. But I do remember

saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the back of the station wagon at a very young age and everyone being kind of surprised. I have earliest memories— it’s that kind of amorphous thing. Memory’s such a tricky thing like, do we really have that memory or is it just this invented thing because of the retelling of everything?

1-00:15:18 Ehrlich: And I wonder if the sensitivity to that is exacerbated because you spend your life writing material based on the past, so you have the experience of thinking about these stories, telling them, retelling them more than the average person.

1-00:15:41 Walloch: Well yeah, definitely in my daily life. I have to say, my work hasn’t tended to focus on my early family background yet. There’s a lot of stuff there. Just in a really general way, what I retell as autobiography, because it’s very much in the style of autobiography, but I also realize as a good writer, there is what really happened and there is what I am telling. And they’re different. That discussion is interesting because people will often say in performance, “What part did you make up?” I don’t really like the idea that any of it’s real and not real, because in a sense when you retell it, it’s all real.

1-00:16:34 Ehrlich: It’s all real and it’s all invented.

1-00:16:37 Walloch: And it’s all invented, at the same time. In a very existential conversation, you could say that about every time we talk, every time we’re expressing ourselves. But if we’re going to speak in those terms for a moment, of what’s real and what’s invented, there’s definitely events as I feel they happened and then there’s events as I tell them in a show, and I do know the difference. I am able to discern the difference. Although it’s very interesting, the retelling of a story, how it becomes true for people. I have said stuff in my work that involves other people, other characters, and they’ve taken it on as absolutely true. Then I’ll say, “Well, it didn’t quite happen that way. I was just doing a show.” It’s interesting how if you write about people and you include their experience in a piece of work, how that almost becomes more real than the experience.

1-00:17:50 Ehrlich: So they then become attached to that story.

1-00:17:53 Walloch: To the story, because there’s something attractive about the story. That’s what I believe is really powerful about doing artistic work, that alchemy that happens in the storytelling. For instance, I tell a story about going South and encountering a faith healer and a friend of mine is involved in that story and in a lot of ways that story became this distillation of the truth. She’s heard that story and that has almost become more of what happened than what actually happened. In a strange kind of way. But it’s liberating to be able to retell it

and it’s more embellished; there’s more ribbons hanging off of it. In a way, it’s a more distilled version, it’s like a more focused version of the truth.

1-00:19:04 Ehrlich: Greg, is there any loss in that process? Though you embellish it and that’s wonderful, is there loss in not being able to hold onto what the actual memory was? Do you find that over time, you’re not sure what actually happened?

1-00:19:26 Walloch: No. Take, for instance, that particular story. There was another guy involved in real life, another person. I tell the story about going south and we have this whole journey in the story, and in real life there was another person there. Now, in order to tell the story, this person is such a broad personality he’s going to get his own story one day, but I had to exclude him from the action, because it was too hard to explain who this third party was. I still know that that third party was there and took the trip with us, and in a way, that’s how I work. He’ll get his story soon enough, so I feel like somewhere in there it’s all collected. It comes out eventually. It all rolls forward in a certain kind of expression.

It’s an interesting thing: truth and what’s not true, and what’s invented and not invented, and what kind of importance are we hanging on it? Just today in the media and politics and all that and everything that’s coming at us in the modern society and media, it all seems fairly invented in some sense. To use a kind word to describe it, it all seems fairly “spun,” so it’s interesting, this idea of truth.

1-00:21:14 Ehrlich: And what our investment in that is, in terms of the political realm.

1-00:21:22 Walloch: Yes.

1-00:21:22 Ehrlich: Is there a history of storytellers in your family?

1-00:21:27 Walloch: That’s interesting. I don’t really believe so. Let’s see, I’m trying to think of what I know about my family. I don’t think so. My mother is a very creative person, for sure. She’s had a lot of different jobs involving visual—very visually creative person. She was a designer; she was a florist for awhile. She did very visually creative things. My father’s an accountant and that’s been very interesting, just in the dynamic between a father and his two sons, because my father is this kind of Republican, straight-ahead accountant, and he’s got two sons who are very liberal and both have really creative jobs and it was somewhat distressing to him at the beginning, as it is to most parents whose kids say, “I’m going to put on a show,” or “I’m going to take pictures,” just because it seems so completely unstable in some sense. But both as myself and my brother have moved forward and gotten some sort of success,

however that’s defined, it’s become easier, and it’s a little bit more of a relief. It doesn’t seem so pie in the sky at this point. But that took a lot of work, to get there. If I look at it in the form of a story, it’s very interesting. I feel like we were really perfect kids for that father.

1-00:23:42 Ehrlich: You mean perfect in what you then taught him? Is that what you mean?

1-00:23:45 Walloch: Yes. I think there was a lot of give and take in both directions. He was a good dad for those types of kids and we were good kids for that type of dad and everyone was really stretched in a lot of directions and I’ve had a lot of therapy to be able to look at it that way. You know what I mean?

1-00:24:08 Ehrlich: Yes.

1-00:24:09 Walloch: Because it was sort of—I’m not going to lie—it was kind of tough coming up with my dad because he was a challenging character.

1-00:24:19 Ehrlich: In what way, Greg?

1-00:24:21 Walloch: And we were challenging for him, too. My dad was very steeped in that really masculine culture. I don’t what to—kind of like that fifties, you know, not quite that extreme, but definitely remnants of that sort of fifties—you know, the man does this and the woman does this and dinner’s on the table. I struggled with that as a kid. I was the loudmouth in my family who would be like “this is bullshit.” And I would get in trouble all the time because I would see injustice, or what I perceived as injustice, and I would speak up and I would really get called to the mat for that, in a lot of ways. Very hard, very hard. My brother took a different route with that, as many kids—you always take positions.

1-00:25:35 Ehrlich: Tell me again the age difference between you?

1-00:25:36 Walloch: There’s three years between us.

1-00:25:39 Ehrlich: And he’s—?

1-00:25:42 Walloch: Three years older. And I’m thirty-four. So it was very interesting, my dad being so steeped in that, “This is the way things are done.” Boy, in my early teens I really rebelled against that. I just saw that as completely unfair and I spoke up freely and often. Now, as a thirty-four year old guy, I have some

distance, and I can look at it and it’s a compelling story. It’s a story as old as time about the nuclear family: it played out this way and it was painful at points and great at points and everyone grew out of it in different directions. It’s a story I’m interested in telling, down the line. There’s something there that I think a lot of people can relate to because we all come from families. It’s unique in the experiences that I had within it, but it’s also not unique because to some degree, everyone has a relatable experience. My parents today are different parents than they were back then. They’re different human beings. It’s interesting to relate to them on an adult level and in an adult way. The family stuff, I’m learning in my thirties how prevalent that is.

1-00:27:47 Ehrlich: What’s the "that"?

1-00:27:48 Walloch: How prevalent the family of origin relationship is. It comes up in the most surprising and shocking ways. In the way that I relate to other people. In the way that I live my life. Ways that are so unexpected. I think it’s a lot of interesting stuff there, and some painful stuff. I’m sure I might seem like I’m skirting some things.

1-00:28:24 Ehrlich: You talk about what you want, and we have time to get into more things, too.

I’m still thinking about the formative influences when you were little, what was it that grew you into an artist, if we could ever know that for sure. I was wondering about the place of books. Do you remember learning to read? Do you remember your parents reading to you?

1-00:28:55 Walloch: Oh God, yes! I was a voracious reader, and I read really early. I don’t know how young I was, but I remember people being surprised at how quickly I read and how much I read, and I think when I did all those standardized tests in school, I was abysmal at math. I’m better at it now, but I barely had any working knowledge of the mathematical side of things. But on the reading and literature and writing side of things, I was reading at a college and beyond level, when I was really young.

1-00:29:44 Ehrlich: Do you remember what some of your favorite books were as a kid?

1-00:29:44 Walloch: As a really little kid, I loved The Little Engine That Could. It’s so funny because it seems so clichéd, right? As if that would be an archetypal overlay for my life. Whatever. I loved that book because it said something about—the engine thought he could do it, and he could. That’s pretty deep, a pretty heavy story, right? That was a great book that I loved as a little kid.

Oh, God! I just read everything. I remember getting in trouble at school because—I forget what book it was—I think in grade school I brought Shogun to school and I was reading it, and one of the teachers was really distressed and talked to my parents because they felt that was an inappropriate book, with all the violence and concubines [laughs], for a kid to be reading, and especially for a kid to be bringing to school and reading. That was an incident that was interesting. I remember my parents being talked to about it: “Oh, your child shouldn’t be reading this sort of material.” But it was like anything I could get my hands on I would read. And my parents—because it wasn’t as out there in the open as, say, television or film was, where parents can click the TV off or know that that film is R-rated or whatever, but books were this other thing where they weren’t that concerned about monitoring, or probably were just really happy that I was reading. I remember a few discussions in school prompted by teachers or superiors about the appropriateness of what I was reading. I think my parents in some way were smart because they were like, “Well, it’s just great that he’s reading grown up things, grown up stuff.”

1-00:32:18 Ehrlich: So they encouraged you.

1-00:32:20 Walloch: Sure, yes, definitely. And dismayed that I was so abysmally bad at math and all that other stuff, especially my dad being an accountant. It was kind of funny. But I still to this day read all the time. I’m awfully busy and I really enjoy when I’m touring and flying on planes. I enjoy that six or seven hours when I’m able to sit and read. It’s really a luxury these days. I wish I had more time to do it.

1-00:32:52 Ehrlich: What about the place of art in your family life? Was there music? Do you remember what your parents listened to, if they did?

1-00:33:04 Walloch: Yes. Gosh, I remember my mom listened to a lot of popular music of the day.

1-00:33:21 Ehrlich: Which was what?

1-00:33:22 Walloch: Abba, which is so great. My mom was really into Jazzercize at some point in the seventies, and I remember all the pop music of the time, like, The Village People. My dad really liked Cat Stevens quite a bit, so I remember a lot of Cat Stevens. I remember The Beatles. More than anything else, having a brother who was three years older, like a lot of little brothers I thought my brother’s older friends were all cool, so I was really interested in the music they were listening to. My brother was listening to The Cure and The Clash and all those sorts of things. We’re not so far apart, but we definitely had different musical tastes, me and my brother. But more than my parents’ music, I remember

spying in my brother’s record collections, seeing what my brother had. Yeah, I liked all kinds of stuff when I was a kid.

I had this really great romance with the radio and I loved disc jockeys, for some weird reason. People would ask me when I was a really little kid, “What do you want to do?” and I’d say, “Oh, I want to be on the radio, I want to be a disc jockey on the radio.” You know, it wasn’t even about the music. I really loved—it’s so strange—I really loved that voice just speaking out of this box. They could just be talking about the music they were playing, but it had very little to do with the music that was being played. I really became fascinated with who that voice on the radio was, and what they looked like, and kind of romanticized who they were. Kind of crushed on them a little bit, in a lot of ways. Men, women. I would listen to the broadcasts and wonder who they were and call and request songs only because I wanted to talk to them. It wasn’t like NPR. It wasn’t like they were the feature at all, it was just this side note. I had this huge romantic notion about it all and got to do radio in California at a certain point out of college. It was fun to fulfill that, and it actually came along in my life without me really realizing that—because that’s a really early childhood thing. Then when I did radio, I suddenly was sitting there in the booth one night and I thought, "Oh my God, I’ve wanted to do this my whole life." But it was a complete surprise, because I had sort of forgotten about being the little kid sitting by the radio and listening to these voices. It was such scarce content. Again, it wasn’t even the feature moment. It was just the people talking in between the music.

1-00:37:15 Ehrlich: It sounds like it was the act of it that spoke to you.

1-00:37:19 Walloch: Yeah, yeah! People talking in between the music. I found it so fascinating. I kind of crushed on them in a way, and I can’t remember specific personalities, but I remember really being involved in that. Even to this day, it’s really funny, in the back of my mind, and I haven’t worked it out yet, I keep thinking of a piece.

There’s a show on NPR and at the end of it, it says, “This National Public Radio Production was made possible by,” and then each person says their own name. You’ve heard that right? So at the end, it will say, “Production by” and then the woman will say her name, and then the man will say their name. [laughs] And then at the very end of the piece this guy named Andy Lancet, he goes, “Andy Lancet,” and the way he says his name is really interesting. I don’t know why, it just always catches my ear. I don’t even know what he does on what particular show, but I’ve always had this idea that I’m going to write this piece about how I fall in love with Andy Lancet, because of the way he says his name on the radio. I haven’t figured out how to write it yet, but— I’m just making that connection now. It sort of harkens back to that. Hearing a moment and it having the power to enrapture you.

I love—this was before my time, but I heard recordings—I really love Nichols and May, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, when they were a comedy team, because what they were able to convey with their voice in just a few words is so incredible. The irony—they were able to do five hundred shades of irony in one sentence. It’s so exciting to me on a certain level. Or the guy on NPR who just says his name, “Andy Lancet.” He has a certain sort of something in there that catches my ear, that very interesting.

Mike Nichols and Elaine May have this piece where she’s reading a letter as if she’s an advice columnist, and she says something like, “Dear Helping Hearts, the other day I received the shock of my life when I saw my intended sitting in an outdoor café with another woman. When I approached them and asked them the meaning of this, in reply they arose and gave me the most merciless beating [laughs] that even the waiters were shocked.” It’s just this moment of—it’s this brilliant moment—just a small turn of a few words and there’s this funny scenario that comes out of it.

I’ve actually been on NPR myself, and I was on the Howard Stern show. In my later career, the radio connection has manifested, and I actually have done things that have been more snazzy and more successful in broad public terms, but some of my favorite stuff I’ve ever done has been on the radio. I just think there’s something really powerful about it. I got an email from a guy who heard a story and he said—I think he was in Oklahoma somewhere—and he said, “I don’t know who you are. I’ve never written a letter to anyone before, but I’m fourteen years old and I’ve been really depressed and on a lot of medication and I heard your story on the radio in the afternoon and it made me feel good enough to get up out of bed.” Ironically, the day that I get that email from that guy, I’m feeling really depressed myself and that email made me feel good. Not to be corny, but in a way, it goes full circle. I wrote back and told him that: “I’m getting your email on a day that I’m feeling bad.” It’s pretty powerful, because that guy in Oklahoma might never come to a theater where I’m at, might not ever see a TV show that I’m in or a film that I’ve done, but here the radio is and it floats into your room for free. Almost everyone has one and it’s pretty amazing, my experience with that.

Thanks for bringing it up because to make these connections is really nice, in a way.

1-00:42:46 Ehrlich: To go back to something you said, and I’m thinking about The Little Engine That Could, powerful book—I can’t help but wonder, obviously, about the connection with your disability. I can ask a more specific question if you want.

1-00:43:13 Walloch: Sure.

1-00:43:13 Ehrlich: Given that that was your favorite book, I’m wondering what messages you got, specifically from your family, about how to cope with having cerebral palsy? It would be helpful to say how it affected you physically.

1-00:43:53 Walloch: Sure. Cerebral palsy affects me in a way where I walk with two crutches.

1-00:44:07 Ehrlich: Did you have braces as a kid?

1-00:44:04 Walloch: I had various contraptions and walkers and canes and a wheelchair at one point. That gives you all kinds of perspective. Being in a wheelchair is completely different from standing up because people bend to speak to you. And when people bend, they tend to change their voice. It’s just automatic.

1-00:44:30 Ehrlich: How old were you when you were in a wheelchair and for how long?

1-00:44:34 Walloch: I can’t remember a specific age, but I remember being in it quite a bit when I was young. In a way, I think it was easier for my parents, faster, quicker to push me along.

1-00:44:52 Ehrlich: So it was a push chair?

1-00:44:52 Walloch: Yes. My father always prompting, “Oh you need a chair. Get in the chair.” He used that a lot. Disability is interesting in any family because it affects everyone, not just the person with a disability. I could talk for days about what all that means. I was in a wheelchair when I was young and for me personally, it’s a different experience. My father often when I was young would use the fact that I was disabled to get a better parking space, be first in line, not have to wait at a restaurant, stuff like that. Even as a little kid I thought that was very fishy and suspect, and I didn’t really like it. I’d speak up, again, getting in trouble with my big mouth. I’d say, “I’m fine, I’m okay. I don’t need to be first.” And still to this day he still swings that weight around when we’re together a little bit. As an adult, I have better words to express how that’s not very cool. I suppose anyone does that in any family, but with a physical disability it’s just very apparent I guess.

My mom really—being a mom is the most incredible thing on the planet, I think. To be a mom is to give your life to these other people. And to have someone with a disability is a lot of work, hard, and my mom really gave so much to me in a certain sense. Hard back then, when I was a youngster. Not so hard now, but really a sacrifice. I can really see a sacrifice, on some level. And then my brother—see, this is interesting, this is the stuff I want to write stories about—my brother, so much pressure on him to then be the one who

performs. [voice choked with emotion] Going to try not to get all Barbara Walters here.

1-00:47:39 Ehrlich: You can.

1-00:47:39 Walloch: Thanks.

So much pressure on my brother to perform, being the able-bodied one, also being the heterosexual one. I feel a certain amount of guilt about that, like, I’m so sorry for all the pressure. I’m so sorry you had to do so many sports that you just didn’t give a shit about. That’s some of the hard content of my family life that I really find interesting, because if you back off of that for just a second and look at it, those are compelling characters. And, of course, that’s just a brief sketch of certain elements of how people in my family related to my disability. Pretty powerful and interesting in the way the father uses it this way, and the mother takes the burden of it this way, and the brother has to perform this way. The main character, what’s he—?

1-00:49:00 Ehrlich: In a way, the main character falls in love with the little engine that could.

1-00:49:02 Walloch: Yes. The main character, yes, I guess, sort of does fulfill that idea that— pushing forward—it’s deep stuff, it’s deep stuff for me, how it relates to that book. The basic deal is: I think I can and then I thought I could and then I did it and I thought I could. There are people to cheer that character along the way in that children’s story, but he did it by himself. There wasn’t a group effort, at least that’s how I recall it. I deal with that—that’s a major issue at this point in my life.

1-00:50:02 Ehrlich: Meaning that you’re on your own?

1-00:50:08 Walloch: On my own. Not just in terms of a person with a disability, but I speak to countless solo artists that—it’s a one-man show in more ways than one. I don’t mean to play the violin for people who are artists because, listen, there are lots of jobs out there and they all have their own set of difficulties. I often hear my coworkers who do what I do—it’s a one-man show in many elements of their life, in many facets of their life. I think that I probably choose to, and am probably in some ways fated a little bit to play that out. We all have free will. Tomorrow I could do something else.

A friend of mine told a story about how she was with this guy and she really loved him a lot and they were having a talk about what they wanted to do with their future and she had always had this really specific idea and his idea just didn’t mesh with that. Her idea was very focused around her career as a solo

performer, as a very successful person, and he wasn’t going for it, and so they broke it off. Her career, her vision, her path took precedence over other stuff in her life. Whether that’s right or wrong, that’s just the way that it was, and I identify with that on some level. I’m dealing a lot with that idea; it’s a solo effort. How to find community and how important that is—

It’s interesting stuff to begin the interview with because it’s really stuff that I’m pounding through in this very raw way at the age of thirty-four. All the characters, and here’s the guy with the disability in the family, here’s how it affects the whole family, here’s how it affected the person. It’s my real life, and it’s what I lived and what I’m living, but it’s also the story element that is compelling to me.

1-00:53:06 Ehrlich: Can you imagine finding a way to transform that into your art?

1-00:53:16 Walloch: Gosh, I hope so, because I think the art makes it easier, the art makes it suddenly more powerful and not as powerful at the same time. More powerful on the positive end of things and less powerful on the negative end of things. I’m getting there. The more that I talk about my experience, I’m getting to a place where it’s easier to focus on, write about. Again, I see that whole thing about how it’s very unique and how it’s not unique at all. In a way, that’s a relief. We tend to have that tendency to think that we’re alone in our experience and that’s why all that afternoon TV is so popular, because the person gets up and says, “I’m this really specific thing” and then someone else goes, “Oh God, I’m so glad that Oprah Winfrey brought that up because now I don’t feel like I’m by myself.” It’s that kind of connection that’s important.

That’s why storytelling is important, too. As a gay disabled guy, you might think that I’m telling this really specific story but lo and behold it relates to you, a person who might be nothing like me, and vice versa. I think that’s why sitting around and exchanging stories is really important.

1-00:55:10 Ehrlich: This is just a version of what we’re doing.

1-00:55:13 Walloch: Absolutely, and it’s happening now. Very interesting. This is a little different, because this is an interview and so it’s not particularly performative. Feeling somewhat confessional. However, it feels is okay. I think with me, more often than not, you’re getting the real thing. A lot of people come to the show and they go, “Gosh, I’m just struck by how honest you are.” It seems like an odd comment. That’s what most people getting up in front of an audience should be striving for on some level. Not to say that I’m having these therapy, cathartic kind of moments. There is an artistry to what I’m doing, but I tend to talk about what’s happening in my life, in an entertaining way, with an entertaining spin. That’s what interests me. I’m not as interested in getting up

and making a big, like, “So, where are you from, and what are you doing?” I’m more interested in being able to locate the person behind the work, or not even behind the work, within the work.

1-00:56:55 Ehrlich: Probably a good time to take a break.

1-00:57:00 Walloch: Okay.

Begin Audiofile 2

[Audio inaudible 00:00:00—00:07:43]

Ehrlich: I’m wondering about your religious upbringing. I know from your movie about you playing a part in the Christmas play but I don’t know about—

Walloch: You know, it’s interesting. I didn’t have a particularly hard religious upbringing at all. My family was Methodist in Southern California, which seems pretty chilled out. I wouldn’t say we were a particularly religious family. We went to church on the big occasions, when you go to church, like Easter and Christmas, and I remember all of that. I do remember a concerted effort when we were teenagers. We got confirmed in the church. It always seemed like it was something we should be doing, but I never felt any intense connection to it. I don’t want to speak for my family, but all around it felt like what you’re supposed to be doing, so then we were kind of doing it, but I didn’t feel like the family was so connected to that religion, in a sense. They might disagree. That’s cool. But I wouldn’t call us a religious household or a religious family, but it was sort of there.

I suppose, in a way, how most suburban familiesI don’t know, but I’m assuminghow a lot of suburban families, I’m assuming, more for the community aspect of it, because it’s something you just should kind of do. But there wasn’t, like, a religious vibe in the house. Not like some of my friends. I had friends in very religious families. They prayed and there was more pageantry and connection. I din’t get that it my family. And I don’t necessarily bemoan that fact. I just note it. I think more now, my father is fairly religious, goes to church with some regularity, but not when I was a kid.

Ehrlich: Anything more to say? Did you have a sense of being a “congregant” [inaudible]—?

Walloch: No. To be honest, that community was such a side-note for me that I don’t really recall much.

Ehrlich: So you didn’t have the experience of, “God will heal you—” or any of that?

Walloch: No, not in church as a kid. If you asked me to recall a church incident, I’d have a hard time thinking—. About the only church stuff I can remember are the hallmarks, like the Christmas play. Or I remember one—I don’t know if it was Easter, but I remember a candle-lighting late, late at night. I fell asleep and I was snoring loudly. But again, that was around a holiday, so I only remember church around those times. As far as having a connection with a community or a congregation there, I don’t have much to draw on.

I mean, you’d think, the way that I worry in my life, you’d think I’d been brought up—I’m very Catholic, in a lot of ways, but that’s my own doing. It has nothing to do with my formal religion.

It’s interesting, because I think that in my adult life, I’ve found my own spirituality, or versions thereof. I’m very interested in—I think part of it comes from being an artist and asking a lot of questions. I’m very interested in different cultures, different ideas, different religions, what people think. Not so much that I’m such a spiritual or devout person, but I get at stories. The reason religion is so interesting to me is because it’s stories. It’s, like, the Buddhists have this version of events, the Christians have this version of events, and everything in between. Powerful, powerful. I would almost venture to say, you could thrust yourself into any religion and if you really committed, they all would work, in a certain way. All roads do kind of lead to God, if you have a broad sense of it, because the stories of Judaism, the stories of Christianity, the stories of Buddhism, the stories of anything, people draw so much power and faith from those stories. That’s why I think, current day, I’m so interested in all these world religions. It’s a form of what I do. That’s not to say that what I do has a spiritual aspect, but the storytelling aspect is really profound to me. It’s like, you get on a soapbox about how important telling stories is, but it is pretty basic. It’s like a basic thread in our humanness. But I don’t any heavy, oppressive religious content.

Ehrlich: So, can we talk about school a little bit?

Walloch: Sure.

2-00:07:43 Ehrlich: Where did you start elementary school?

2-00:07:47 Walloch: I went to elementary school in Redlands, California.

2-00:07:55 Ehrlich: Public school?

2-00:07:56 Walloch: Yes, it was a public school and I was in special education part of the time and then mainstreamed into school for most of the day with special education for one or two classes. And at the time—and I’m thirty-four, so at the time in the

early seventies I think that was sort of controversial, if I’m not wrong. I remember there were some questions swirling around: "How will this affect Greg?"

2-00:08:38 Ehrlich: To be mainstreamed?

2-00:08:40 Walloch: Being mainstreamed. Being with "regular" kids, as they would say. My parents were very good about, “Oh no, we think it’s something he should do,” and they pushed to, well, on two levels they pushed because they were smart and they could see that I was smart, and that I should be mainstreamed, and they also pushed because I think, because of my father, there was this desire for everything to appear as normal as possible. Not only with me but with the whole family. So that was also a motivation in the mainstreaming, but also because they were smart and they were like, “There’s no reason that he shouldn’t be in regular classes.” But I remember there being parent-teacher meetings and there was a psychologist at one point, and how would this affect me and where would I go in my life and what would I do?

2-00:09:51 Ehrlich: Was there a point when you weren’t mainstreamed?

2-00:09:56 Walloch: When I was very young, like in early grades, but it happened pretty early. And they wouldn’t mainstream everyone. It was like this personal choice in some sense.

2-00:10:13 Ehrlich: And what was this Special Education? You were mainstreamed but you had other classes too that you would go to?

2-00:10:23 Walloch: I had physical therapy for a period during the day. I don’t remember the specific classes, what the subjects were, but there were always one or two classes where I was with the Special Ed students.

2-00:10:41 Ehrlich: What was that experience like?

2-00:10:43 Walloch: Really great, because I got to meet and experience so many different people. It’s going to sound terrible because in a weird way, whether you were mentally challenged or blind or [laughs] physically disabled, bipolar, whatever was going on, it was just like a catch-all. They threw everyone in the same room and said, “Oh they’re all the same because they’re all different.” It sounds terrible, right, but there was something really beautiful for me about that because I got to experience so many different people at a young age.

And when you’re a kid there’s that beautiful thing where you just want to be friends with that person sitting over there. You don’t have all that stuff in your way like judgment and prejudices and fear. You might have judgment, because I think we have this fantasy that kids are so great and so innocent and free of everything, but I’ve babysat some kids in my time [laughs] and when you get in touch with who kids actually really are, that’s not the truth, that they’re all not judgmental and super innocent. But I think what kids do lack is fear. They don’t know a lot of that learned fear. They can be judgmental and mean and strange, but they don’t have that inherent recoiling. In fact, they have that other thing, that very exploratory pushing forward energy. I don’t mean to paint it as if they’re only goodness and innocence. But that was the great thing about being a kid in that class; I got to meet so many different people and experience so many different people. School is interesting because they say that everything goes back to the playground, even when we’re adults, and I like that idea. In some ways, it’s true. As important as family origin stuff is, I also think the dynamics of the sandbox in adult life is another interesting overlay in which to look at things.

2-00:13:28 Ehrlich: So what was your experience like, having—obviously, you are more than your disability, but being the kid with a disability when you were mainstreamed?

2-00:13:39 Walloch: I know I’m different, and I knew I was different at the time, but I didn’t let it bother me too much. In this broad sense, I saw everyone’s difference, so then I didn’t feel so different, in a certain way. I think that really carries on into my adult life and my life as an artist. I got along with—there was something about the way I related to people in school—I got along with many types of people and I was able to vacillate between many groups.

It’s a little easier to decipher in high school, because I think that’s when those groups get more defined, that’s when people split off. I remember in art class sitting at all the tables, but there were always tables where the—this is where the popular kids sat, this is where the stoners and burn-outs were, and this is where the Mexican kids were. I remember having friends from all those groups, acquaintances more than anything, from all those groups. And then being very much on my own in a certain way as well. Outgoing, I was outgoing, I was gregarious, and also spent some time on my own.

I mean, very reflective of my adult life. [laughs] I feel the same way. I feel like I live up here in Harlem. I’m in a community of people up here that are different than the community of artists that I know that are different than— both those communities different than the gay community that I know, different from the disabled community that I know. And hopefully [I have] arms and heart that are big enough to embrace it all. I think that’s what my work is trying to reflect. Let’s open our arms to embrace the whole thing

because as different as we all look, as different as we all think we are, we’re all in the same boat.

We share the human condition and that’s powerful to me. That idea is powerful to me, and my heart’s desire is to get in touch with that over and over again on a daily basis, to remind myself of that, and it ties back into spirituality, funnily enough. To continue to open my heart to all people all the time everywhere and see that this is just a physical manifestation of our bodies and who we are is just a physical manifestation of the energy that we all share, of the human energy that we all have. Very interesting, this idea of all these separate communities and bringing them together. I’ve often taken up that role, with some chagrin and also with some joy, depending on how it’s playing out. I don’t know what to call that, the diplomat or the—I don’t know what to call that energy.

2-00:18:06 Ehrlich: Do you relate that in any way to what your experience was having a disability? Meaning that—you understand the question?

2-00:18:17 Walloch: Kind of. Can you say more?

2-00:18:22 Ehrlich: Yes. I’m thinking your intent, what you just said about opening, seeing everyone in terms of their humanity, and that we’re all different, and that we’re also all connected, and you live in a world where I assume, I know, some people look at you and what they see is—I assume as a kid, too—what they see first is that you have a disability

2-00:18:57 Walloch: Sure.

2-00:19:00 Ehrlich: —and relate to you specifically that way. I’m wondering whether your instinct as a kid to open your arms wide was in some ways a reaction to some of what you felt from other people coming towards you?

2-00:19:24 Walloch: Yes, it’s a little broader than I can wrap my head around, but yes. When people approach me making certain judgments, my natural inclination is to show them otherwise but not in a way to prove them wrong or to even educate or preach, but in a human way, like any of us would. I’m more than—there’s more here than what you see. There was an interview I did online with this guy, Mark Allen, funny interview, but one part of it was, "What are three things you would say to a person with a disability?" I think he said, and I said something like, “You will understand the gifts of illusion in this life. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are.” And then the third one was a stupid, funny, punch line. I do think there’s something about illusion. Having physical disability is something that’s really real, like having brown eyes or being left-

handed, but also there’s something that’s a little bit of illusion about it because of what people attribute to it, what people make it, what I make it, the stuff that people hang all over it.

2-00:21:29 Ehrlich: I’ve heard other people talk about, you know, they walk into a room and their disability walks in first, in terms of other people’s perception.

2-00:21:39 Walloch: Right. In a way, I think that whatever—not in a phony way but in a really real way, I make sure my humanness precedes that. My humanity walks in first, I hope. I really made an effort in my life to lead with my heart. As corny as it sounds, I hope people see my heart before they see my physicality.

It’s interesting when I talk to—there was an online interview with several people with disabilities. I think Nontraditional Casting Project did it. All those lovely people in the interview—something came up about dating and relating, and this has come up in panels with other disabled people before. People say, “Being gay”—since being gay is so related to sex in some way, or so it seems, people connect it to sexuality and sex itself—people say, “How do you relate to the gay community?” The underlying question is, “How does the gay community ostracize you?” or “Tell us some horrible experience that you’ve had with the gay community, who is all body-conscious and so therefore you must have terrible stories to tell.” The truth is, I don’t have a lot of terrible stories to tell. I have a love life and a life as a gay man that probably looks a lot like the life of the next gay man you talk to. I don’t know if that’s just attributed to who I am, but like I said, when I walk into the room I try to walk in the room with my humanity, with my heart. That’s not to say I’m not walking into the room with my disability. I am.

2-00:24:01 Ehrlich: Well, it’s also other people’s perceptions, which you can’t necessarily control.

2-00:24:08 Walloch: Which I can’t control. There is something to whoever you are, able bodied, disabled, whoever you are, the way you walk through the world is powerful. The way you appear to people is powerful. People of other races and women and probably even the straight white guys too, to a slightly lesser degree, maybe that’s an illusionbut I was going to say, I was having a conversation with a woman friend of mine and she’s like “Oh, I get that, I get that. You do your hair. You put on a dress, and you walk into a bar, and people have this reaction.” She’s like, “Women get the power of that. Women get what that appearance does to men and to other women.” And all these reactions fire off in a hundred different directions, and they’re really powerful. Any woman who’s being honest will cop to that.

I think that’s not so far from the costume of disability when we’re looking at it in those terms. Or a person of another race. A really good friend of mine, an

African American guy, he knows what it is to walk into a store and be followed around because they’re thinking he might steal stuff. Whether or not he steals stuff or not, there’s something about that, the costume of color or the costume of femininity or the costume of disability. And all those things are real. You can’t take them on and off like a costume, but they’re not essentially who you are underneath, because you’re not necessarily the black guy who’s shoplifting and you’re not the vampy woman who all the other girls hate and you’re not the disabled guy who’s ailing and sad or whatever people think.

The straight white guys have a version of that too, I’m sure. I’m less familiar with it and I live with two of them. It seems a bit more of a foreign concept, but even there, I think, in the modern world, it’s hard to know what kind of straight white guy to be. Unless you’re like the straight white guys who are running the country, then that’s pretty defined. But if you’re just an open- minded sensitive male in the year 2004, I think that’s a hard gig as well.

It goes back to our huge humanity that we all share that I can reach out and touch that experience of other people, so although my experience with disability seems really unique, I can find it everywhere. I say a line in my show, ironically and facetiously, which is “I believe every single one of us is disabled in their very own special way.” It always gets a laugh. And then I end the show by saying, “I get a warm feeling inside of my heart, because when I look out on this audience here tonight, I know that what I’ve said was true.” Of course, it’s all dripping with a certain kind of irony and funniness, but in a way it is really true. We’re all in it together folks. That’s a big part of the message, if there is any in my work. It’s this longing, a really deep longing for connection, not only for me on a one-on-one level, which I, of course, long for like anyone, but for connection in a broad sense that is layered throughout my work, and I hope that’s apparent in some way.

I’ve had other disabled people not always enjoy what I’m up to and not always enjoy what I’m doing and what I’m saying about disabled people. And that’s okay, because people are out there saying different stuff and I don’t necessarily agree or disagree. As I’ve gained some popularity in the media or in the art world, disabled groups have come along to claim, to take part in what’s happening. It’s been an interesting trip, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it more later. Different disabled groups have come in and you sort of by default become a representative, which I’m reluctant and uncomfortable with because I might not be expressing what you feel represents you. I’d like people to go speak for themselves. I’d like people to say their own truth, I’d like people to write their own show.

2-00:30:44 Ehrlich: Let’s come back to you as representative of the disability community, what all that means, and also with the gay community, say more about it.

I don’t think we’re done here. I’m thinking back to school. What kind of student were you?

2-00:31:14 Walloch: Early on in early grades I loved the community aspect of school. I loved connecting with the teachers. I was one of those kids who really liked to hang out with adults most of the time and that manifested in school. I usually had more interesting connections with instructors than I did with other students. I was a fairly good student in the early grades and through most of high school.

In my senior year of high school, I started to really question in an existential kind of way, "Why is this happening, what does it mean, and how relevant is it all?" My grades slipped a lot and not because I wasn’t smart. I got really good grades for the most part, but when I started to have that sort of existential. "What is the meaning of all of this?" my grades weren’t so good. It’s that questioning the system, and questioning the system gets you in trouble because if you question the system and you see holes in the system or you see stuff in the system that you’re not happy about, it’s difficult, because you’re a participant in the system. There’s a breakdown somewhere there.

And I experience that today. I experience that alienation today. Being an artist, I think we spend a lot of time questioning what this all means, where is it all going? In a way, there’s a disconnect because I’m a human being in America in the year 2004 and I’m living in the system and having huge questions about it. But everyone is; that’s not so unique, because of our current political climate and what’s happening in the world post-9/11. I think a lot of people are questioning where we are, what we’re doing, where we’re going, more than ever before.

There are things that will fall away and things will rise up and be created new again. I think when you start to question the rules, things start to get a little shaky.

2-00:34:14 Ehrlich: So you started that in high school? You remember that?

2-00:34:19 Walloch: Oh yes. There was a distinct time when I’m just like, "Oh God, what are we doing? What does this mean?" and I started to buck the status quo a little bit. Then on to my college career which was—I didn’t go all the way through.

2-00:34:43 Ehrlich: Wait, let’s back up. Did you get any art training in high school? Drama? What were you into?

2-00:34:57 Walloch: I didn’t get a lot of specific art training in high school itself.

2-00:35:06 Ehrlich: Were you writing for yourself?

2-00:35:11 Walloch: I was reading an awful lot. When I was about sixteen years old, I’m not sure what grade that puts me in, but when I was about sixteen, I can’t even remember how I heard about it, but at the college in my town there was a woman named Denise Taylor who was teaching this sort of improvisation class. Totally avant-garde theater. I was sixteen years old and decided to go and check it out, and to see what it was about. It was called “Theater of Life” and it was this avant-garde theater training. There was a Buddhist spin on it. Buddhism is a great model for improvisation as well as creativity, because there’s just so many things within it that go hand-in-hand towards healthy, sturdy creativity.

2-00:36:30 Ehrlich: Like what?

2-00:36:30 Walloch: There was a lot of work with your breath and your attention and about the creative process and how it really mirrors the life process. We create from nothing, we transform it by our interaction with it, and then we let it go. And it transforms into the next thing and the next thing. There were many elements of the Buddhist model that went hand-in-hand with creativity. Denise Taylor was this gigantic influence on my creative life at that time. I think I learned about that, or at least I met this person in that time period, Gayle Brandeis, who’s a pretty well-known writer, who wrote a really beautiful book called The Book of Dead Birds and another book on writing instruction, called Fruit Flesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write. Gayle and I became good friends and just really remain creative confidants to this day.

All that work with Denise Taylor was hugely influential on me in my work, and that was about when I was sixteen years old, and then I studied with her consistently for almost three years. So that took me through the end of my high school years. That was my drama class, but it wasn’t in the public school system. It was at the university outside of the public school system.

2-00:38:41 Ehrlich: What university?

2-00:38:41 Walloch: University of Redlands. But I didn’t attend there. It was totally influential. I met people at that time like Gayle Brandeis, the writer, and another friend of mine; Jab is his name. I’m still friends with him today. He’s in several bands. Very well-known musician. So I made a lot of creative connections and Denise Taylor, still in touch with her. I met Vicki Lewis, who I’m sure we might talk about later, through Denise Taylor. I met Ruth Zaporah through Denise Taylor, because Denise Taylor had been a student of Ruth Zaporah

and then I met Vicki Lewis through Denise Taylor. All these huge connections.

2-00:39:34 Ehrlich: Was Ruth Zaporah in LA [Los Angeles]?

2-00:39:40 Walloch: Ruth Zaporah, I believe at the time, had been in Berkeley, and Denise Taylor had been a student of hers. And Ruth Zaporah had a—I only studied with Ruth Zaporah briefly. Ruth Zaporah had something she called “Action Theater.”

2-00:40:03 Ehrlich: Still does.

2-00:40:03 Walloch: And still does. “Theater of Life,” which Denise Taylor had developed, was based on a lot of the precepts of ideas of Ruth Zaporah, which Denise Taylor totally acknowledges. At the age of sixteen, I found that, and it was just profound. It just ignited this whole thing, and then from there I got really involved. It seemed really feasible to be an artist. It seemed really real. That was the moment when it was like, "Oh yeah, there are grown-up people doing this," and it just seemed really feasible. And then from there

2-00:41:00 Ehrlich: Did that shift your relationship to high school? Once you saw this other world?

2-00:41:06 Walloch: Yes. I felt at home. I felt like I had found my family and my tribe. At sixteen years old it felt like this extremely accelerated time. It’s almost like high schoolI mean, it took me through graduation, my study with her took me through graduation. High school was kind of in the dust at that point. I knew what I was going to do. That’s why college suffered so. By the time I got to college, I was taking classes because I though they were interesting but not necessarily because they met any curriculum.

2-00:42:04 Ehrlich: What school are we talking about?

2-00:42:06 Walloch: I went to a couple of community colleges. I went to one called [pause] Crafton, which was in Riverside, California. I could have that totally wrong. Then I went to Santa Monica College for a while. It’s not like that pursuit didn’t interest me, but I justI’m jumping ahead a little bit, but I already had the beginning of this sort of art career which I found really exciting and just profound. I took a ton of courses that I found interesting and fascinating, but they didn’t necessarily add up to meeting the required criteria of college and degree and graduating. All total, maybe I went to three years of college and studied a lot—took a lot of philosophy, sociology, psychology, art

appreciation and art history, spirituality, religion. None of it particularly added up to graduating or a degree. I didn’t really much care. I really felt that was okay, much to the dismay of my family who were like, "Oh, the degree is everything, and in your future you’ll really be sad you don’t have it."

2-00:43:51 Ehrlich: Have you been [sad]?

2-00:43:52 Walloch: No. Not so far. Ironically, what’s really kind of delicious for me, in a way, is that I’ve been invited to be a professor at several universities and that’s so fun. Maybe I am thumbing my nose a little bit, but I’m teaching kids now and I didn’t get the piece of paper. It’s pretty satisfying to know that I’m being invited to do so because I’m an expert in the field, or so they say. I haven’t been regretful thus far. But I do understand that world of college degrees and the importance of the whole thing. If I had it to do over, would I go back and really work my way through and get it? I don’t think that I would. I just want to add at the time when the whole stuff was going on with Denise Taylor with “Theater of Life,” through that I was also exposed to Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, and as a sixteen/seventeen/eighteen-year-old back in 1986, 1987, and 1988, is that right?

2-00:45:21 Ehrlich: I think it might be a little later, because what I have in my notes is that Highways was founded in 1989.

2-00:45:29 Walloch: Yes, it might have been a little later. Isn’t that funny how that all gets smashed together?

2-00:45:34 Ehrlich: It also may be that it might have been there more informally.

2-00:45:42 Walloch: You’re probably right. I remember as a young guy being in Santa Monica and just being around these amazing people, Tim Miller and Holly Hughes and John Fleck and Doug Sadownick, who was Tim Miller’s boyfriend at the time. It was like going to art school. It was like being an eighteen/nineteen-year- old—you’re right, 1989—being exposed to this whole world of amazing performance art when it was really having its heyday, it’s performance art boom in that time period, and I got to see all these amazing people, Annie Sprinkle and so mind-broadening, Robert Flannagan. I performed on a bill with him very early on at LACE, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and wow!, just amazing. So grateful, so so grateful, to have gone through that experience and still know those artists to this day and better than any formal education I could have gotten, I think.

That was a really special time. I could just be harkening back to another time and making it more romantic, but it seems like the art world and the way the

media works today is a little bit different than it was back then, in Los Angeles and Santa Monica at that time. Or not Santa Monica, just LA. The performance art scene was pretty special, some pretty amazing stuff was going on. Tim Miller was kind of at the center of all that in a lot of ways, being a cofounder with Linda Burnham of that space. I feel so lucky. I feel so privileged to have encountered those artists at that time. It completely shaped who I am and what I do. Tim Miller and Doug Sadownick were two gay men who were artists, who were adults in love out in the world, living together, and had their own complex interesting unique relationship. And as a young gay man, that just did so much for me. That gave me an almost role-model situation, where there’s a place where this is right, where this is functional. It was amazing. In relation to school and college at the time, there were just bigger things cooking. Hard for the parents to understand at that moment. How do you explain to your parents that you’re having this great experience and you’d rather go see an Annie Sprinkle performance than you would sit in a classroom? It’s a hard one to explain.

It was this beautiful time. I moved to Venice Beach when I was pretty young. I was maybe seventeen going on eighteen, eighteen going on nineteen, but pretty early. I lived in this pocket in Venice Beach where Tim Miller and Doug Sadownick lived and David Schweizer the theater director, Reza Abdoh, who’s no longer with us, but an amazing artist who put on these amazing full- scale amazing avant-garde productions. And Monica Palacios, who’s a Latin lesbian comedian, and all of us lived down there in this one little section of Venice Beach, and it was powerful, it was powerful at that time to have that community. I felt like I was home for the first time in my life.

I didn’t have that community in school, not really. I didn’t have that community in church or I didn’t have that community in suburban life. I always thought that I was different because I was disabled and then I figured out that I was gay, and I always thought I was different because I was gay, and then I still felt different, and then I was like "Oh, it’s because I’m an artist." And I still feel different and it’s because I’m neurotic [laughs], and the list goes on and on. But for the first time, it really felt like I found a community where I was really welcome. Powerful, and at this point looking back, undeniable. How could you not walk down that path? But at the time, it was huge.

2-00:51:48 Ehrlich: This is a good place to stop.

2-00:51:48 Walloch: Okay.

[end of session 1]

Interview 2: October 27, 2004 Begin Audiofile 3

3-00:00:01 Ehrlich: It is October 27th, and this is our second interview with Greg Walloch at his home in Harlem. Let’s finish up a little, following up with some things from yesterday. I realize we talked some about childhood and adolescence and got no sense of coming of age. Since sexuality is a big part of who you are and what you perform, I was wondering if there were some coming of age stories: first crushes, awareness of yourself as a sexual being.

3-00:00:49 Walloch: I had an awareness pretty early of my gayness or homosexuality, very early on. In the documentary film that was done about my work, I tell a story about seeing a male babysitter of mine in the shower at one point. It’s not as creepy as it sounds, but I remember seeing this nude guy coming out of the shower and finding that really interesting. I was a young kid, a little kid, so I had some awareness of my sexuality from an early age, but it didn’t really come into the forefront of my perception until my teen years, until later.

In high school, there were a few girls that I went on dates with and a few random sexual experiences here and there with women. Around sixteen or seventeen I had my first sexual experience with a man and it’s one of those hallmark moments in a life, like we were talking about yesterday. Finally finding a community of artists and having this moment when you go, "Ah, this is something that resonates with me." It was like that with sex in terms of not so much the sex act itself but one of those really hallmark moments where you fall more into yourself. You come more into yourself. I don’t know if I have any specific coming of age tale of romance or relationships or love.

And sexuality in terms of my work, like any artist, it’s part of who they are and so it’s going to become part of the expression, but especially as a gay man, and especially at the time period when I came out, I was already, as a young man, involved in a high risk performance space which had a very—sort of leaned towards gay performance, gay culture, along with all the rest, being this multicultural thing. Tim Miller, being a gay solo performance artist, spoke very eloquently and continues to speak very eloquently and beautifully about his relationships and who he is as a gay man, so in a lot of ways the personal, political, confessional performance style that was taking place at that time, not only with Tim Miller but with many other artists like my good friend Elia Arce, just a whole bunch of people talking about their experience in a creative way in an artistic setting; it was that thing of what is personal and what is political. And does the personal become political and vice versa. I suppose that’s how the sexuality plays into the work in some way, because at the time, HIV and AIDS was really ravaging a community of people and a community of artists, and it was a very crucial and important time to speak up as gay people, to have our voices heard as a group. Also a scary time, personally, to be gay and coming out, and here’s this thing that’s kind of scary. People don’t

know a lot about it. People are losing their friends. A whole generation of amazing artists, of brilliant amazing people lost to this illness. It’s different today, thankfully. Also in a strange way, because maybe young kids don’t see it with quite the same eyes.

3-00:07:16 Ehrlich: Is the “it” AIDS?

3-00:07:18 Walloch: Yes.

3-00:07:18 Ehrlich: Or the history?

3-00:07:20 Walloch: The history. The history of it. The history of the whole thing. There was a reason at the time in my life and my work to be more politicized, in a sense. It was just around me and the other artists who I knew and worked with and enjoyed. It was just a time period. I mean, I’m a young guy, I’m only thirty- four, but looking back over my body of work, I’ve been very good about keeping a timeline, and sometimes I just scan down it. The venues are telling, because there were some political actions and some very interesting things along the way, and then later on, things are more toward comedy venues and maybe some more media-savvy, media-based things. More than anything, that has less to do with my choice and the arc of my career and more to do with the setting at the time, what was going on in the world. I think back to that time in Highways Performance Space, it was just important to be—a different kind of art was being made for a different purpose.

3-00:09:00 Ehrlich: And can you define that, how you see what the core of that was?

3-00:09:07 Walloch: It was very personal, very personal—people speaking a lot, and not only speaking but expressing, dancing, whatever form it’s expressed in, expressing who they were, identity-wise, in a sort of multicultural way. And then like everything, once you delve into it, by the fact that you’ve dived into it, it changes the nature of it. So then as you move forward, that “multiculti” thing easily becomes, like, spoofed or funny. So it’s interesting, like, how things change—

3-00:10:11 Ehrlich: Because at the time it was very earnest.

3-00:10:15 Walloch: At the time it was very earnest and like anything, because I suppose, we have this tendency to be—I can’t put my finger on it—we have this tendency to be cavalier at the very same time or ironic at the very same time. It’s funny how just the passage of time changes all that stuff. Not that it’s not just as sincere and just as earnest today. It just looks different. It’s just about different stuff,

and that was a very special time back then. I harken back to that time and realize how lucky I was to be in California, in that scene, and how it really shaped who I am as a gay guy, as an artist, the way I do my work. The way I sort of move forward in the world. It’s such a good basis, such a healthy basis for things because not to be snotty or arty-farty at all, but I do see myself as an artist, as opposed to an entertainer or a comedian. I’m those things as well, but there is an actual working, alive basis for what I’m doing.

3-00:11:53 Ehrlich: And you feel like that grew out of this sort of avant-garde scene of what was happening?

3-00:11:58 Walloch: Oh, absolutely.

3-00:11:59 Ehrlich: In that whole pocket of—

3-00:12:07 Walloch: Southern California performance art scene at the time. Pretty amazing.

3-00:12:09 Ehrlich: Before we leave, I’m wondering, you’ve got this really active thing at that time going on, discovering your sexuality, claiming your gay identity, hooking up with other artists, really kind of cutting your teeth, learning your art. It’s what sounds like an incredibly supportive community. And I’m wondering what was going on with family at that point. Were you having contact with your mom and dad? Because you were still pretty young.

3-00:12:47 Walloch: Yes, I was really young. I was eighteen, nineteen years old.

3-00:12:51 Ehrlich: Where did they fit in, your nuclear family, where did they fit into this whole picture that was also going on for you?

3-00:12:57 Walloch: I’ve always had contact with my family. There was never a time in my life where contact was diminished. They were supportive in a very generalized way, and they knew I was taking trips down to Los Angeles to do something. It wasn’t entirely clear, I don’t think.

But then this whole Southern California—everything you described—the whole arts scene, finding my identity as an artist, finding my identity as a gay man, was really my own—really this separate thing from my family in some respect; that wasn’t to say that I was out of touch with them. It was probably similar to the experience people have when they go away to college. There’s a lot of talk about created families, how people go away and then create their own families, and it’s usually—the conversation usually circles around gay identity or people of other races or people [and] difference, conversations

about difference and otherness. But I think we all do that created family thing no matter who you are. You have your nuclear family of origin and then you go away in your life and begin your journey and you have these created families and sometimes it’s very deliberate, sometimes it’s very happenstance. Even now, I live with two roommates, I’ve had various roommates throughout Los Angeles and New York, and even that is like a created family in some aspects. So it’s very interesting this idea of who we surround ourselves with and who we have bonds and alliances with. I was always in contact with my family, but this was just the beginning of finding out more who I was, coming more into being who I am.

3-00:15:49 Ehrlich: What’s your coming out story in terms of your family? I know a line from something I’ve read that you have written, about your father finding out because he read about it in the media.

3-00:16:06 Walloch: I must tell you, that is a fascinating thing to me. There’s this story that my dad found out about my sexuality due to the fact that he read it in a blurb for a show that was happening.

3-00:16:26 Ehrlich: I read that somewhere.

3-00:16:29 Walloch: And it said something like, “Performance Art from all your favorite sodomites.” It was this very ironic and funny way of advertising it. I don’t know if I started to tell that story. I believe so. I believe I started to tell that story as a funny anecdotal thing. That’s not what happened, really, in my recollection. I think my dad—I recall events where my dad knew. My dad knew before that, and it’s funny how as a storyteller, a story that I started to tell because it was funny and anecdotal and maybe not entirely one-hundred percent autobiographical, but illustrates a certain thing, but somehow my dad took that on as events as they actually happened.

3-00:17:38 Ehrlich: So that’s the story he now tells.

3-00:17:40 Walloch: Oh, I’ve heard him tell it, as if it’s what happened, but I really don’t believe that’s quite what happened. I have to say, I didn’t have some hugely dramatic coming out like “I’m gay” and they said “Get out of the house and we disown you.” I didn’t have that. My family was pretty tumultuous, just generally. When my mom called me to tell me that she and my father were finally getting a divorce, I very shortly, maybe in the same conversation or the next day, told her I was gay.

And it felt like this really intense moment because she had the courage to step up and do something or admit something that she needed to admit, her

marriage wasn’t working. It was a big deal. I, in a way, had to—that gave me the courage to go, "Well as long as we’re sharing, as long as we’re talking about it. Yeah," I said, "I’m gay." Her response was like, “Oh, well yeah, I kind of always knew,” as moms almost always do. She did have this moment where she was really sad, crying a lot, and I understand it and she said, “I’m not sad because of who you are. I’m sad because I’m having to let go of all this stuff I thought—of all these ideas I had about who you were.” And I totally get that. That has little to do with sexuality or judgments about sexuality. That has to do with adjusting your picture of somebody in this gigantic way. Especially for a parent, I think that’s got to be intense.

I think at some point, I don’t remember having a conversation that was that direct with my father, but I remember mentioning it or mustering up the courage to say something. I think I said, “Dad, I’ve spoken to Mom and I’m gay,” and I think he just went, “Okay.” There wasn’t much said, and I think it was hard for him. I think it was an affront to his masculinity. As I said before, he was very seeped in that masculine culture and although there was no violent raging and freaking out and slamming of doors, I think for him it’s just something he doesn’t understand. It was very curtailed, his response, and not particularly approving, even though he said two words, the vibe was very apparent.

3-00:21:31 Ehrlich: The two words were?

3-00:21:32 Walloch: "Okay." Or one word. Or "uh-huh." Or whatever it was. But to his credit [he] dealt with it in his own way and continues to, on some level. I think it was many things. My relationship with my dad is pretty complex because I feel like appearances were really important to him and how the family appeared and how things looked, and having a disabled son was this big blow to his ego in some way. [He] took it really personally. Like I said yesterday, it intensely pressurized my brother to perform, to be the heterosexual son and the able- bodied son. So then when I came along and came out to my father about my sexuality, it was just further stuff about—an affront to that whole masculine thing and hard to deal with, hard to come to grips with.

In my early twenties, boy, I really raged against my father, trying to get him to see a different view, a certain view. Here I am at thirty-four, and tons of therapy later, and I can sort of talk about how we are different, and it’s okay that we are different. He doesn’t have to be a certain way, and I’m not as rageful and angry about the situation. I can now take it not as personally. I’m a gay, disabled performance artist, and my father is a George Bush-loving Republican guy and we are really different. To this day, he still doesn’t—I think he has this view of homosexuality that a lot of conservative Republican people do, that it’s not really real, or there’s something—like a friend of mine was just saying—a friend of mine recently married a Canadian man who was

gay so he could stay in the country, and her mother found out recently. She cried and she freaked out and she got really hysterical, and she said, “Oh my God, are you fucking him, too?” And she’s like, “No, Mommy, he’s gay.” My friend was explaining how her mom has this idea that gay guys aren’t really gay, like she’s a little suspicious of them and if given the chance, they would sleep with her daughter.

3-00:24:55 Ehrlich: Like they were maybe just sort of mixed-up men.

3-00:24:57 Walloch: Like they’re mixed-up men, and so I think there is this kind of attitude in my own family with my own father where I think he knows that’s who I am. I think he understands that’s part of my identity, but in the back of his mind somewhere I think, in a generalized way about sexuality, he thinks, "Oh, it’s just this mixed up thing," or "It’s just this choice." That’s a whole other discussion, about is your sexuality a choice/not a choice, what does that imply, what does that not imply? But very interesting, that stuff.

3-00:25:51 Ehrlich: So you have these two forces going on at the same time. The history from where you came and this relationship with your dad, but then you had this community that was reinforcing really different values.

3-00:26:10 Walloch: Giving me a healthy picture of what it was to be an artist, what it was to be a gay man.

3-00:26:20 Ehrlich: You had the gay model, the artist model, did you know other performers with disabilities at that point?

3-00:26:28 Walloch: No, I didn’t. I don’t know, because it was such this multicultural environment, all that stuff was pretty accentuated. Here’s a Latina lesbian performance artist who works in multimedia, whatever. It had a million monikers. Everybody had a million monikers. There’s that joke that people make about, not Southern California specifically, but about San Francisco. If you go to San Francisco there’s a support group for you. There was a little bit of that element going on in that environment where everybody—as sort of diverse and about breaking down boundaries as it was meant to be and also to this other thing—everything has two sides, a yin and a yang, where you risk the danger of falling into that trap of being the Latina lesbian performance artist who does this and that. Although I didn’t know other people with disabilities, I was certainly aware of people’s very specific identity issues. I’m not sure if you see how that relates, but it’s sort of like I was really aware of these categories and the power of them as well as the detriment of them.

3-00:28:23 Ehrlich: So in those early days that you were performing, and I want to get more specific about what you were doing, did you claim your disability identity in the way that you do now? You know, now “white, disabled talent.” Was that a moniker that you were clear about when you were first performing?

3-00:28:44 Walloch: Oh yeah, because I was so influenced by what was going on at that time, and the idea especially in the gay community, like ACT UP—and I wasn’t ever really an active ACT UP person, but I was certainly active in the community—ACT UP taught us those lessons of taking labels like “queer” and reclaiming them and finding the power of them again. Much of my work in the beginning was based in that, taking these moments that were—or these terms that were perhaps victimizing and finding a way to turn it around, to turn it on its ear and make it look different and reclaim it. The work is different today, not only myself, but the landscape of people’s creative work. Some of that has definitely stayed with me.

3-00:29:55 Ehrlich: What do you consider your first public performance? Do you have a memory of when you really felt clear that you were a professional?

3-00:30:11 Walloch: When I was doing performances with the Theater of Life, Denise Taylor’s group, around sixteen years old. And we got up on stage and we put on these productions and that was a sense of me being like, "Okay, we’re in here and we put this together." It was powerful because it was our own content; it wasn’t a script that somebody else had written.

3-00:30:51 Ehrlich: Is it improv?

3-00:30:54 Walloch: We ended up with a set piece that was created out of improvised work.

3-00:31:05 Ehrlich: And that has a direct route in what Action Theater looks like?

3-00:31:09 Walloch: Yes. I believe the first performance that we did, God, I love it, the first performance that we did was based on the Buddhist wheel of life. There was this round rise built on the stage so it was as if the wheel was tilted upward and then we were on platforms all around the wheel. And each person represented a character along the Buddhist wheel of life. There’s all these different phases, but they were modernized and given a certain spin and it was really quite amazing. There was a man with an arrow in his eye, was one of the characters, and I remember it was played by this guy who decided to make the character a stand-up comedian, like a man with an arrow in his eye and he’s a stand-up comedian.

My character was this man picking apples and on the Buddhist wheel of life it represents longing or reaching desire. I had this crew cut and I had on this army outfit and Janice Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” would play in the background and I would just stand and pick apples off of this branch that was coming out from the side of the stage. Lights would go on and off on each spoke of the wheel and then it would just continue and continue. Fairly avant- garde and really taught me [that] "doing" is just as important as "not doing" and—because I was standing there picking apples it wasn’t about doing this big showy performance thing. It was about learning how to be small and learning that silence is just as important as words, and that stillness is just as important as action.

3-00:33:48 Ehrlich: Profound lessons for a sixteen-year-old.

3-00:33:51 Walloch: Oh, for like a young guy. In a lot of ways it saved my life. Not that I needed saving, per se, but finding that at sixteen years old and working in that vein and finding Highways Performance Space.

3-00:34:08 Ehrlich: Is that where this performance happened?

3-00:34:10 Walloch: No. The Theater of Life performance happened at the University of Redlands where I had met Denise Taylor and had been working with her. And then we put on four more productions after that in the following years. It was great. I don’t know how that would look today. I don’t know how it would look to do Buddhist wheel of life and the whole—things aren’t as avant-garde these days.

I went to a conference, I won’t say where, but I went to a conference that was supposed to be about disability and I think somebody hired me kind of sight unseen. Someone must have said, “Oh, who's the big disabled performer right now that we should get?” So someone was like, “Oh, Greg Walloch is. You should get Greg Walloch.”

3-00:35:08 Ehrlich: You sure you don’t want to say where it is?

3-00:35:11 Walloch: Yeah, I don’t, because it’s not flattering. I was hired for this disability conference and I went in and I did a rehearsal and the woman in charge comes to me and—this is modern day, recently—the woman in charge comes to me and she’s like, “Greg, we saw your rehearsal and we’re very worried about what you’re going to be doing. There’s going to be a lot of very important people here. This event has been sponsored by the city and we want you to know that our intention is that this is an event about disability. This is not a gay night club in New York City.” So I thought, interesting. She said, “We just need you to take the gay stuff out.”

3-00:36:05 Ehrlich: Wow!

3-00:36:06 Walloch: That’s why I don’t want to say where it was. I was like, "Well, you’ve got to understand something. I don’t have a non-gay version. And she’s like, “Well, we’re very concerned.” And she’s telling me, like, twenty minutes before I’m supposed to go on. So my stomach is completely churning and I’m thinking, "What am I going to talk about for an hour? And is it okay to even try to attempt to accommodate her?" I mean I had a million feelings.

3-00:36:39 Ehrlich: Was she saying, "Don’t be gay?" Is that what it felt like it translated as?

3-00:36:44 Walloch: Yes, don’t be gay. She goes, “It’s over the top. It’s over the top.” She kept saying, “This is an event about disability. It’s not a gay night club.” And then, get this, “Don’t get me wrong, Greg. I’m a proud lesbian myself.” Unbelievable, right? Unbelievable that this lesbian woman is coming to me saying this. But her ass was on the line, she felt, because she had organized this event and I think she was very nervous how it would come off. And so I debated about it for a while in my head, and then I went upstairs to the box office and I said to the box office person, “Hi, Greg Walloch. I’m here to get paid.” The box office person said, “Oh, are you done already?” I said, “Yep, I’m done,” and she handed me the money and then I went downstairs and then I came out and went on stage and did my act exactly as is. As I got on in the years in this business, I got smart and know that it’s good to get paid first, so I was just covering my ass.

But I couldn’t change what I do. And it’s not that I’m such a rebel and that I’m so invested in getting my way, but I just thought it was incredible. And who hired me? Who hired me here? How could you not know that my material was the way that it was?

03-00:38:36 Ehrlich: But also—

03-00:38:37 Walloch: Right, well my point being that—because I was trying to connect with something we said earlier—performance has changed, because if I’m considered suddenly what’s radical, what’s really radical, in this scenario, like, what the hell happened? When we’re doing a show, say, about the Buddhist wheel of life, or when I’m at Highways Performance Space and Annie Sprinkle is doing some fabulous show that she does with the speculum and her—all this stuff about her vagina and breasts and being a woman, or Bob Flanagan is doing the very extreme body masochism stuff and it all has an upward spin about how it’s about working through stuff for each of those artists.

But here I am sitting in this venue last year, just last year, and this is happening and I’m considered somehow edgy suddenly? I’m looking at these other artists thinking about that time period going, “God, compared to Bob Flanagan, Annie Sprinkle, many other artists, I’m such a cupcake. How can I suddenly be this edgy person just being a gay guy? Just talking about what I talk about?" Shocked how in a lot of ways, things have really changed. I know that’s an isolated incident. However, I think attitudes have gotten more conservative, definitely.

03-00:40:39 Ehrlich: The thing I’m struck by in that story, too, is that it was specifically a disability-related event and issues of identity are issues of identity and you’d think a conference focused on disability-related issues would be very aware of what it means to be gay, that it’s a similar kind of civil rights issue and identity issue, so it would be as if someone said, “For this one, can you not be disabled?”

03-00:41:11 Walloch: Right, exactly.

03-00:41:14 Ehrlich: So, that that parallel wasn’t made by someone, is striking.

03-00:41:20 Walloch: And by a lesbian woman herself. There’s a lot going on with her, obviously, but—

03-00:41:26 Ehrlich: Part of what you were struck by was how it compared to what you knew back—how many years before was that?

03-00:41:41 Walloch: Back in the day.

03-00:41:42 Ehrlich: Back in the day when you were sixteen.

03-00:41:44 Walloch: Yes, absolutely, because there was much more provocative stuff happening. And, yes, just because you’re a maligned group of people, whoever you are, doesn’t mean you have the corner on sensitivity for anybody else. I have certainly learned that. Whoever you are, you could be the women’s movement, you could be the gay community, you could be the disabled community, I’ve seen extraordinarily bad behavior from all parties. I think whoever those groups are, those communities are, there are great things, there are wonderful things about gathering together because you have something that is alike. I realize the power of gathering together, but the downside of that is you can be just as bureaucratic, just as close-minded, just as uptight about whoever’s coming down the pike next, and I think there’s this mask on it as if

it’s not that way. And it’s not always that way. We’re talking in absolutes here and there, but it’s very interesting.

03-00:43:15 Ehrlich: Well, and you’re kind of living it, because you put yourself out in the world on stage, claiming your identity and claiming disability, claiming—white’s maybe a little easier—and claiming your gay identity.

03-00:43:35 Walloch: Right, and when I use the term in my show, I tell a story about how at a casting call someone says, “Send in the white disabled talent.” It’s not so much that I’m claiming a white identity, but I’m making fun of the fact that it’s compartmentalized along with the rest.

03-00:43:56 Ehrlich: So Greg, we started with what you considered your first performance. Can you move us through time? So you studied with Denise Taylor and what was your trajectory after that?

03-00:44:21 Walloch: In terms of people I studied with?

03-00:44:25 Ehrlich: People you studied with, but also the performing that you did and venues.

03-00:44:29 Walloch: Gosh, well

03-00:44:32 Ehrlich: And obviously you can’t go through every performance that you did, but just give us a sense of what that

03-00:44:38 Walloch: I do them all the time [laughs]. I just did one last night. I studied with Denise Taylor who was one of the first people, and then

03-00:44:56 Ehrlich: And it sounds like you performed that show. Were there other shows with her?

03-00:44:59 Walloch: Yes, about three or for other shows in the following years. Denise Taylor was a student of Ruth Zaporah, so Denise Taylor introduced me to Ruth Zaporah. I studied with Ruth Zaporah briefly.

03-00:45:16 Ehrlich: Was Ruth in the Bay Area at the time?

03-00:45:18 Walloch: Yes, and briefly, but profound. Anyone who’s encountered Ruth Zaporah

03-00:45:31 Ehrlich: I just saw her perform.

03-00:45:34 Walloch: You don’t forget it.

03-00:45:34 Ehrlich: What is it about her work that’s powerful to you?

03-00:45:40 Walloch: It’s more along the same lines of what Denise Taylor was teaching because Denise Taylor was a student of hers. So, it was just really great to go somewhere else to a different person and have it reinforced and have it not seem like this anomalous thing. She just had this ability to really cut through all that stuff we tend to make extra special about the creative process and in a samurai-like fashion, she is able to slice it away.

03-00:46:31 Ehrlich: And does what you’re saying—maybe just go for the core of the creative spark?

03-00:46:36 Walloch: Exactly. Go for the core of whatever that force is that moves you to create. It’s so funny because I think all this conversation always sounds a little, “Oh, the creative process,” but a powerful, profound person to have studied with. Then from there, Denise Taylor connected me with Victoria Lewis, who’s in Los Angeles, disabled artist, very great person.

03-00:47:16 Ehrlich: We interviewed her.

03-00:47:16 Walloch: And so you know. I studied with her as well, and also studied with Tim Miller. Tim Miller did gay men’s workshops, and I did several of those.

03-00:47:31 Ehrlich: Now during all this time, were you also performing?

03-00:47:35 Walloch: Yes, I was also beginning to perform. I should backtrack a little bit. After I did all of the Theater of Life performances with Denise Taylor, they were very avant-garde, simple things, I started to want to tell my own stories. I got to Highways Performance Space and there were all these artists like Memo Sander and Elia Arce and all these amazing artists telling their own stories and I wanted to get up and do the same. I really have to thank Tim Miller for making that happen. I remember, yes, he was very aggressive in getting me up there.

03-00:48:29 Ehrlich: You mean pushing you?

03-00:48:33 Walloch: Pushing me, in a very lovely way. I remember it was almost like, “You should perform. You should perform,” and then I was on the calendar to do it, at Highways Performance Space.

03-00:48:48 Ehrlich: We might want to just mention that Greg has roommates, in case we hear sounds, those are what they are.

03-00:48:56 Walloch: I was really happy to suddenly be performing. And thrust into it in this very super supportive but sort of fly or fail kind of fast way.

03-00:49:13 Ehrlich: So, were you doing your own material then?

03-00:49:16 Walloch: Yes, and it matches my background in improvisation. I already had a fair base of knowledge in improvisation, so it was challenging and fun and exciting to get up and create work and put it out there. Still to this day, I love to work in that way. I’ll go into a space or a club and I’ll think I’m going to do one thing and sometimes I’ll just get up and talk about something else. It took me a long time to trust that just that voice in the spontaneous moment is worthy enough and works and there’s some artistry to it. That it’s not just some unbridled stream of consciousness. That there’s actually some work going on. But the first piece at Highways was not an improvised piece. It was a piece I wrote about going to a clinic and being a young man in my underwear.

03-00:50:27 Ehrlich: So it’s the same piece then that ended up in Crip Shots?

03-00:50:33 Walloch: Absolutely. And amazing to me that that piece lived on forever. Then, later John Killacky would come to me and say—I don’t even know where he would have seen it because it’s not something I consistently performed over and over and over again, but I did and it kind of had this life. I did it a couple of times and I did it in a couple of venues.

03-00:51:06 Ehrlich: I might know the secret there, which is that I spoke with him and he remembers seeing you perform at Dixon Place when he was the curator of performing arts at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis.

Walloch: Oh—

Ehrlich: So it may be that if you performed it there, he saw it.

03-00:51:28 Walloch: I have a newspaper article where that piece was documented, but that was early on, and my time in New York, like it had to be at least as far back as 1992. I didn’t perform it much after that.

03-00:51:49 Ehrlich: That would be it. So he must have seen it and held onto it.

03-00:51:52 Walloch: Yes. I did this piece where I come out in my underwear and I pace back and forth and I talk about going to—walking in front of this panel of doctors and I swear I’ve only performed that piece live maybe four times total, but it was amazing how people would say, “Yeah, you did that piece. You did that underwear piece.” It wasn’t this salacious thing. It was sort of—I realize a guy on crutches in his underwear talking about being twelve in his underwear, and it was the white JC Penny briefs, that really ugly, unflattering tighty-whiteys that kids wear—I realize it’s a striking image, when I can take my own personality out of it, about how I feel about my body, that that was a striking image

03-00:53:10 Ehrlich: Also sexuality is a piece of that.

03-00:53:12 Walloch: Sexuality is a piece of that, sure. It was interesting that that resonated for a while. People really remembered that piece. That was one of the first pieces I ever made and it has reverberated around for so long. People have even written about it in books and stuff. It’s very interesting to see this really scholarly take on what Greg Walloch implied by doing—I read this piece that was like, “Walloch exposes the body as the battle ground in the medical theater.” They did all this stuff about the medical theater, and I don’t mean to offend whoever wrote that or anyone’s work, but that’s not—I mean it’s interesting to read those things and what the artist “intended” because what I intended was to just tell my story and to do it in a provocative way. But I didn’t really think, "Oh I’m going to illustrate the medical theater in a disabled form," and I don’t think any artist who does anything interesting approaches it in that premeditated fashion. But it’s very fun to read.

03-00:54:45 Ehrlich: It just came out fairly recently, if it’s the same piece.

03-00:54:49 Walloch: I think so, and I love it.

03-00:54:54 Ehrlich: Sort of groundbreaking book about disability and the arts.[Petra Kuppers’s 2003 book, Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge].

03-00:54:56 Walloch: I’m sure it totally is, so I don’t mean to make light at all. It’s just funny because from the artist’s perspective you’re like, “I was just trying to do my thing.” In a way, I also realize what was behind it. I don’t think as an artist in the creative process you go in thinking, “I’m going to make a piece about this.” That was one of my first pieces and very powerful to do at Highways Performance Space. And the body stuff, there were a lot of people doing just naked body-oriented work and so not surprising that I would be influenced in that direction.

03-00:55:57 Ehrlich: And end up in your underpants.

03-00:55:57 Walloch: And end up in my underwear in Highways Performance Space. As many, many people have, before me, at the time. It’s that beautiful thing about life: everything you ever experience will always just collide into itself in this hopefully beautiful way later on. I can see that at many points in my life. I did this and I did this, and these two collide together in this way that’s unexpected and then something interesting comes out of it. Whether that’s art or that’s life, it’s the same thing. Studied with Tim Miller at that time. I was studying a little bit with Ruth Zaporah and Denise Taylor and moving forward.

03-00:56:52 Ehrlich: How did you support yourself?

03-00:56:55 Walloch: I was still really young, so I was on disability social security and living on that to some extent. Challenging, really challenging to do so, but somehow I did it. I’m doing better financially today, but I still live that artist’s life in that sometimes it’s a feast or famine thing. Changing, but it’s still that sacrifice of not having a nine-to-five job, but also the great stuff that comes with that.

Begin Audiofile 4

04-00:00:04 Ehrlich: Ok, we’re back after a break, and it is still interview two. I just wanted to ask you, going back for a sec, what kind of reaction did you get when you kept the gay stuff in your performance at the disability conference?

04-00:00:32 Walloch: Very interesting—[laughs]

Ehrlich: What was it?

04-00:00:34 Walloch: —the way that it worked out, because I went in, did the show as is, and then the woman who had booked me, who had previously been so dismayed over

what I might or might not do, afterwards in the lobby, when all of the important people were standing around saying how great it was, how profoundly moving or whatever, all those adjectives, they—“Oh, that was so amazing,” and “So pleased to have you here,” not just my work—I mean, they were talking about everyone, because it was on a shared evening. And boy, you know, when people came around to compliment me, she was right there beside me, sort of going, “Oh, yeah, we’re so pleased. We were so pleased to be able to bring Greg Walloch here.” I understand those politics. That’s politics. That’s the way it goes. She is there to take the congratulations right alongside me. When I did the exact thing that she asked me not to do. But because it worked out, she’s there to, like, receive the accolades. You know?

Ehrlich: What was your sense of the audience’s reaction? Can you feel how an audience responds to you?

04-00:01:54 Walloch: Oh, absolutely.

Ehrlich: And what did you feel there?

04-00:01:57 Walloch: Well, I think every performer—this is what I’ve learned [laughs] over the years, and especially doing comedy in New York. I won’t jump forward too much, but yeah, if you’ve been doing any avant-garde theater, performance stuff is hard. I didn’t really learn what baptism by fire was until I got on a comedy stage in New York City. What I’ve learned over the years is you’ve got to listen. It’s so much about listening. An audience will teach you how to be a good performer. We can get to that later. But yeah, you can definitely feel where an audience is and although it’s a solo show, although it’s a one-man show, it is always a conversation. When I’m doing good, when I’m effective in my work, is when I’m having a good conversation with the audience.

Ehrlich: Do you have any—

04-00:02:57 Walloch: Or at least an interesting one. But [laughs] at this disability conference, there were some people that I think were a little ruffled by the gay content, but nobody came up and said it outright at the time.

Ehrlich: You could feel it?

04-00:03:18 Walloch: I could feel it, there. And I mean, this is what’s kind of great, the next day, somebody wrote me this scathing email about—Oh, just like, “You’re a waste of human space,” really, really mean stuff. “That was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.” But like, really venomous. Really venomous. How’d I’d wasted all their time. What I find interesting is, if you hated it so much—you had to go find me on the internet, you had to go hunt down my address

somewhere, to get me this information. So I find that very interesting. You hated this artist so, so much; but you had the time to write a five-page letter to let them how you felt. So there’s something going on there. That’s not to say I’m devaluing her, this woman’s response, this audience member’s response. But it’s interesting.

Ehrlich: Was it from this conference?

Walloch: Yeah, from—

Ehrlich: Was any of her criticism connected to the disability politics or the gay stuff, or—?

04-00:04:32 Walloch: Yeah, absolutely. I think the sexuality made her really uncomfortable. She said something like, “Find an audience and stick to it. But we don’t need this garbage,” or “this bullshit,” or something like that. I didn’t read the entire thing, because, why? But you know, I wrote back to her. I sent a quick email back. I said, “Thank you for your comments about my work.” Because really, thanks for your comments about—I mean it. I mean it. I’m not meaning to be snide or weird. But I think, I mean, I’m only thirty-four, but I’ve been performing since I was sixteen. After all these years, if I’ve learned nothing else, it’s just to say, “Thanks for your comments. Thanks for your reaction.” Because good; they can rave about you, and they can say that you’re the second coming of whoever. Or they can say, “You’re a waste of human space, and that was the worst garbage I’ve ever seen.” And if there’s anything you can say in reply to either one, it’s, “Thank you very much for taking the time to comment.” I sincerely mean that, from the bottom of my heart. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have any reaction. I, as the person, human being, have tons of reactions. But if I can move outside of that, it’s to say, “thanks.” Thanks for the input. What I do with it, where I take it is a whole different thing.

04-00:06:20 Then the very next day, after that really scathing email, I get an email from someone who said something along the lines of, “I never knew comedy could be art,” and that she had had this really amazing experience. So that’s what’s beautiful about a live audience. That’s what’s beautiful about living on a planet with other human beings. We can all be in the same room together, and we can have such diverse experiences.

The trick is, none of it’s terribly personal, and at the same time, it’s all terribly personal. I don’t get too bogged down in that stuff. I talked about my first professional performance being at sixteen; but then there’s also a moment where I became a professional performer. That’s different. Part of it was, I stopped caring when my friends didn’t show up at shows and that only strangers were there. Or you know, where it did become a job. That’s not to say that it has become mundane, or boring, or tiresome, or tedious, and it is those things at times, but the bubble gets burst, of it being—in those early

days, it was all raw and really exciting and bursting at the seams. I still have a fair amount of that; I think any creative person does. But it’s also now mixed with business and where’s it’s tiring to—I mean, just in these past two weeks, I’ve been on, like, maybe six trips, touring around. So that’s not to give it a good or bad value, but there’s just a reality to being on that many planes, to going to that many places, that changes it. That’s where a level of business comes in, and where you have to take care of yourself and—. It’s not just about putting on a show for the sake of putting on a show.

If I ever lose that other part and I’m only all business, then I just need to quit. Because then it’s irrelevant, what I have to say has become irrelevant. Yeah, the reactions to that show were very interesting. Never heard from that woman again. Don’t think I’m going to get rehired. But interesting that she was there to, like, take the accolades right along with me. Someone might have called her out on it. Another artist may have called her out, but I’m not that interested in that. She knows. Like, hopefully, if she’s at all awake, slightly, she’ll get the info. she needs. It’s not up to me to educate her in that moment. At least, that’s how I feel. Other people might have said, “Oh, you should’ve given her what for,” and really, like, laid into her. But that’s just not my—I’m not that interested.

Ehrlich: You took care of yourself.

04-00:09:56 Walloch: Yeah, and I’m just not that interested in educating everyone else. And that ties into disability, in some sense. It’s like, you walk down the street during the day, and I must have twenty people go, “Oh, are you alright? Do you need help? Can I help you?” I just look at them “No, thanks.” People who walk with me, who are my friends say, “How are you so nice? How is it that you’re so—. These people come up and they’re intrusive, and they’re not particularly tactful, yet not only are you not annoyed, you have something to give them. You give them a little moment of your time.” That’s only because that’s easier than flying off the handle, than loosing my shit every time somebody says, “Hey, I have something stupid to say.” Because that’s just how I roll with it, you know? That’s how I roll with it. I much prefer going in a loving direction than being the educator and being like, “Let me tell you what’s what.” Because I can do that in other arenas. And I’ve got stuff to do, I have places to go. But anyway, that just occurred to me.

Ehrlich: That makes me think about the work of Bill Shannon. Have you seen his on- the-street performance art?

04-00:11:32 Walloch: I’ve seen some video and stuff, definitely.

Ehrlich: And what’s your reaction to it?

04-00:11:36 Walloch: Oh, God! Bill Shannon is—we’ve not really met much in life formally, but I’m such a fan. I mean, how can you not have an incredible, like, crush on him, you know what I mean? I mean that not only in a very human way, but in, like, an artistic—I have a total artistic crush around what he’s up to. It’s so amazing, and—

Ehrlich: What do you think he’s up to? I mean, I think about it specifically, because what he’s dealing with, in part, is exactly what you just talked about, which is turning that constant sort of intrusive energy on the street into what he does as performance art.

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: And he’s been both praised for it and criticized for it.

04-00:12:21 Walloch: It’s a little bit like happenings, you know? There’s a happening, there’s like a public happening or a public—. It’s a very interesting thing, because it’s taking performance to the street, in a way that’s very profound. Yeah, I’m just so impressed by what he’s up to.

Ehrlich: Do you have any specific reaction to the way he uses his disability to sort of invite—that whole issue of being helped and—

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —that becomes part of his performance, and that, then, is viewed by other people, and that the helpers on the street become part of this performance?

04-00:13:45 Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: Do you have a specific reaction to it? I mean, some people have reacted by saying, you know, “It’s deceptive. It’s cruel. It’s not loving-hearted.” Other people have had the opposite reaction.

04-00:14:02 Walloch: It’s his experience, and his life, and so it’s completely fair game. I mean, I’m a talker. I’m talking all the time. That’s my mode of expression and for myself, there’s no topic that’s off limits; there’s no content that’s taboo. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t want to include in my work. So that’s my reaction to that. Fair game. It’s fair game. He gets to express it and take it in and put it back out, in whatever way he wants. The judgments from others, valid for them, but like I was saying, you say, “Thanks for your input. Thanks for your input on my work.” Because it’s what moves him. It’s what he’s moved to portray.

The art doesn’t have to be beautiful. It doesn’t have to make us feel something beautiful. Or it doesn’t have to give us this huge gush of, like, whatever that experience is. I mean, there is art that’s amazing. We look at it, and we feel this huge rush of our humanity and our love, and all the colors that are really lovely. But there’s art that we look at and we’re challenged by, and we’re repelled by, and we’re confronted by. I think he includes a lot of those flavors. I think I do, too. I think by first glance, we look really different, because we’re working in different forms, but just in terms of content and flavor, we seem really different. But I think if you really, really investigate what both of us are up to, if you’re to compare and contrast us, my expression might look a certain way on the surface, but you go underneath, and it’s similar. His might look a certain way on the surface; but you go underneath what he’s doing, and there is some heart. There is heart in there. There is tenderness in there. Although, deceptively, it looks different—

Ehrlich: I think that’s actually really—

Walloch: On the surface.

Ehrlich: —an interesting comment.

04-00:16:58 Walloch: And so, God, I just so admire that he’s out there in the way that he is, and if I’m to make a comment on disability in the arts, I think, like many other avenues of the art community, a lot of it is terrible. A lot of it is terrible. I’m not naming names, but the bar has been set really low. I think there’s this idea of, like, “Oh, look at, you know, Sad Sally over there in the wheelchair, making this oil painting; and isn’t it great?” The bar is set so low that people like Bill Shannon, it’s earth shaking. Because not only is it ground breaking, but it’s truly ground breaking, and it’s truly authentically profound work. Disabled or not, he’s a profound artist and that’s what’s really exciting about it.

But you know, taking it outside of the realm of disability and looking at the pop culture, the bar is also set really low. The bar is set really low. Like, we have, you know, Ashley Simpson or whoever. You know what I mean? That’s got its place in pop culture, and that’s great, that that’s so consumptable and readymade. But at the same time, I think when we see a singer who we love, like you know, there are so many. In my work as a spoken word artist, I’m influenced by so many singers and I feel like I have a kinship with singer/songwriters, sometimes even more so than I do with other forms, because they’re storytellers, just as much as myself. I love people like Ellis Paul and Patty Griffin and people like that. So when you see an artist in that medium who veers off from the pop culture and is presenting you with some really authentic and profound work, it’s striking to us. It’s striking to us. It perks up our ears, and we sit up and take notice.

That’s not to say that anybody should be—. Like you said, some people have said about Bill Shannon, “Oh, it’s not—. It’s this and it’s that,” and they have these negative reactions. That’s not to say that you should be a provocateur, just for the sake of it. But that it’s getting that kind of reaction; that I go into this conference and a woman thinks I’m the devil himself, and another woman thinks, “I saw art in something that I didn’t think art could be in,” it’s interesting. It means we’re working in the right direction. I don’t know. I’ve just been so lucky throughout my career; I’ve gotten to perform with so many different people and meet so many different people and—.

04-00:20:41 Ehrlich: Maybe we should go back to where we left off, in terms of sort of following the trajectory.

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: So you’re still in LA You’ve now performed at Highways. You’ve gotten a bunch of training.

Walloch: Yes.

Ehrlich: You’ve studied with Ruth Zaporah.

Walloch: Yes.

Ehrlich: What was the next step, because you did eventually end up in New York, so—

04-00:21:05 Walloch: I did, but there’s—

Ehrlich: So let’s—

Walloch: Yeah. Well, I was just surrounded in that community by all these amazing artists, and there was all this collaboration going on and mutual support that was so amazing. I met Rachel Rosenthal, the performance artist, Rachel Rosenthal. She, I believe, still teaches these workshops called the DbD experience. It was the Doing by Doing experience and it was based on more experimental improvisational work. I have a really great story about Rachel Rosenthal, and I have to preface it by saying I love her to death.

Ehrlich: We are letting the cat in.

Walloch: We’re letting the cat in. [creaking door] Oh, it’s cool. He’ll come around [referring to cat]. So—

Ehrlich: Rachel Rosenthal.

04-00:22:15 Walloch: Rachel Rosenthal. So I have this great story about her and being in her workshop. I have to preface it by saying I love her so much, and she’s influenced me so much, but this is also just a really great story that I want to share. I was in her workshop, and we were all sitting around in a circle. The participants were all sitting around in a circle. We were just doing these things where were we vocalizing. You know, vocalizing up and down and up and down, or just making whatever sound was occurring to us at the moment. She would say, “Oh, connect that with an emotion, and go into it,” and some people were making really joyful noises, and some people kind of wailing, and it tended towards being, you know, dramatic, strong emotions. So she’s taking all these people in the circle to this place of very strong emotion, and she goes around to each one. She gets to me, and she says, not really knowing me yet, “I want you to really make noise. I want you to get in touch with some pain.”

So I begin and then I’m kind of going somewhere else in my mind. I’m thinking about whatever issue’s prevalent to me in that moment. She sort of grabs my legs, and she grabs my arms, and she’s there, she’s right in front of me. She’s like, “I really want you to get in touch with this pain, because a blow has been dealt to a healthy body, and I really want you to contact that pain.” In that moment, I wasn’t thinking about that. That’s not what I was really vocalizing about, but I also felt like in the middle of this experiential thing, I couldn’t really stop and be like, “Mm, actually, I’m actually thinking about this other event in my life. I just broke up with my boyfriend, and I’m really thinking about that pain, because that’s what I’m experiencing.” But I just didn’t feel like I could stop and explain it. So I just go ahead with my vocalization and I really go there, about the breakup with my boyfriend. But she’s going, “I want you to feel the pain of what’s happened to this body.” So I’m like, [loud moan], and I’m really getting into what I’m thinking about, but doing it anyway, you know? So I’m just really going for it, really going for it. And then I look up, and everyone in the circle is weeping, because they think it’s about this other thing, that she’s brought me to this place about my physical body.

And they think it’s—they’re having this other experience. So I look up, and she’s like, “I’ve noticed that you hold your head down, that you look down, you hold your head down. I want you to look up and claim your space.” So all I do is lift my head up, and she smacks me across the face. Then she’s like, “Now, when your body is dealt a blow, you can handle it,” and so there was this whole thing going on. I love her. I think she’s an amazing person, but I love that story. I love that story, because here I am, and everybody got this cathartic moment out of it, because she puts this idea that I’m mourning over my body, and says, “Look up and claim your space,” and I do, and then wham! To illustrate a point of, like, “Now you’re strong.” I totally get what she’s going for, but what was fun for me of the story—and in real life, I’m like, “Did this sixty-something-year-old bald bitch just slap me in the face?”

You know what I mean? But I love her. She’s an amazing woman. But not knowing me yet, just being a person in that avant-garde experiential moment, she was doing this whole trip, but I—

Ehrlich: That had nothing to do with what was happening.

04-00:27:18 Walloch: That had nothing to do with what was happening for me, and I realized how much it was, for her, meeting me, assuming that in the twenty years before I got to her, I hadn’t really dealt with it. Or she assumed that that’s what I was maybe always dealing with. And so I love that story. I love that story. I love the idea that here’s this person teaching this workshop or having this super- experiential thing. And again, I so respect her as an artist and as a friend. I know her, or I came to know her. But I also realize—I don’t mean it to portray her in any bad light, because I also realize it’s just exactly what people think touchy-feely Los Angeles workshops, art workshops, are about. But it’s just this moment that I find so interesting.

Ehrlich: Well, it also does say a lot about many people in society’s perception of disability, which is—

04-00:28:25 Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —that’s got to be where all your pain is located.

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: That’s the quickest assumption,—

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —that that must be what you’re grieving.

04-00:28:36 Walloch: Right. Must be what I’m grieving, and then a certain kind of, like, I guess psychological dynamic of doing the whole, whatever that was. But very funny. Very funny. I mean—

Ehrlich: It’s interesting that you react to it with humor.

04-00:28:54 Walloch: I suppose so. But it was almost, like, so surreal, how else—? I mean, I wasn’t particularly angry to have—I mean, she’s such an amazing presence, an amazing personality. I couldn’t believe I had been smacked in the face. You know? It was really—it was so astounding. And—yeah. I mean—

Ehrlich: And does that—?

Walloch: Everything’s cool. No lawsuits, no craziness. But I love the story. I love the story.

Ehrlich: Does it feel like it captures a particular way of teaching? At that time?

04-00:29:39 Walloch: [laughs] Sort of. Yeah. Kind of like—yeah, really. And listen, I have to give airtime to the fact that with my continued study with her, there was brilliant, amazing work that unfolded, and all that stuff. But yeah, it definitely encapsulates a way, a very hands on, very experiential type of teaching, a very psychological—

Ehrlich: Which was a chunk of what was happening there then?

04-00:30:20 Walloch: A chunk, a small chunk of it, a part of it. I mean, yeah, it’s easy to see what’s funny in that story, and it’s totally ripe for the picking. But yeah, I don’t necessary mean it, though. Because I have so much love for her and I think I’ve never, ever told her that story. But I think that looking back on it, it would be funny. But we didn’t know each other yet. I mean, I was just this young, twenty-year-old guy, happened into her class. And you know—

Ehrlich: Walking with canes and—

04-00:31:02 Walloch: Walking with canes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But I love the story. I love all of what it means.

Ehrlich: So talk more about the performing you continued to do, and the decision to—

04-00:31:20 Walloch: The decision to—?

Ehrlich: —move here.

Walloch: Oh. Cool.

Ehrlich: And when that came in the trajectory.

04-00:31:25 Walloch: I—

Ehrlich: It sounds like it was such an incredibly positive experience for you, it’s hard to imagine you—

Walloch: Leaving.

Ehrlich: —what would make the transition, so I’m interested in that.

04-00:31:36 Walloch: Right. I continued to perform around the LA area. I performed at Los Angeles Contemporary Arts Center and did some really amazing stuff around the city, and in 1992, August of 1992, I moved to New York. There was a lot going on in my life at the time.

Ehrlich: How old were you?

04-00:32:12 Walloch: ’92. I was twenty-two. I had been dating someone for a while, who had moved to New York. I never thought that I would move to New York because of a relationship, and I didn’t. [laughs] I said, “See ya later.” But I did end up knowing that person again, now that I’ve been here. But part of the exodus from LA was, I’d broken up with this boyfriend. The LA riots had happened, pretty recently, at that point, which was distressing.

Ehrlich: What did they mean to you?

04-00:33:05 Walloch: Oh, God! In a way, what they meant to—[cat meowing] It’s interesting to compare and contrast it with, say, something like 9/11. Because the LA riots seemed big, you know? And they were. And they were. But then to be in New York and experience something like 9/11 puts the LA riots in perspective. I mean, they’re both big deals, but who knew what was coming? You know? And not that they’re even related, but just in terms of a life experience. The LA riots, scary. It was terrible, you know, the Rodney King incident. Horrible. Horrendous. And sad that news like that, I guess less shocking today, seems a little more commonplace, which is upsetting to even think that. But I remember at the time, profoundly upsetting. Profoundly—

Ehrlich: What did you actually see?

04-00:34:24 Walloch: Oh. Well, all the footage of the beating, over and over and over. And the riots. Then how it was scary to think that people were rioting in Los Angeles. And am I in danger? Should I go out? Should I stay in?

Ehrlich: Was there actual rioting happening near where you were?

04-00:34:52 Walloch: There were. Some places got looted and burnt down. It’s not at all—I don’t mean to portray it at all as if I was in the thick of it. But it was just this idea that rioting was happening, and am I in some danger? Am I in harm’s way? That kind of idea. Uncomfortable. And, of course, the news taking part and portraying it, and the hysteria, as well. But the LA riots had happened; I had broken up with this boyfriend; and I had an incident where I lived, in Venice, California, where some neighbors had been very threatening to me and my roommate at the time, and really hateful stuff about me being gay and him being—he was Panamanian; but Mexican, they said. Or whatever. You know.

Really hateful, awful people. Really racist and homophobic. What struck me is, Why would you live in Venice, California, where you’re just surrounded by the people you claim to not like? And so I was threatened.

Ehrlich: Physically?

04-00:36:21 Walloch: Mmm, nothing happened physically, but I was threatened. There were threats made that I’d better watch my back, et cetera. I went through an ugly incident, getting a restraining order, doing that whole thing. It’s funny, the community at the time, the artistic community at the time, yeah, helped me raise some money to pay for the restraining order.

Ehrlich: Wow.

04-00:36:50 Walloch: I mean the community really came in to help out. Like, that’s what it was. That’s what it was.

Ehrlich: This is the early nineties, now?

04-00:36:59 Walloch: Early nineties. And the community that I knew, the art community that I knew, really came to my side in that circumstance. I don’t mean to say that it was the most horrendous thing that ever happened, because nothing did happen, but it’s never comfortable to be threatened. I got the sense that I had to move. I’m like, “I have to get out of here.” Well, there was a lot of opinion about that. I remember some friends saying, “Well, you need to teach these people a lesson, that it’s not ok,” and I’m like, “Well, when people are threatening to shoot me, I don’t want to stick around.” Who needs, like, a dead hero? You know what I mean? Who needs the person who taught these people a lesson, and they got shot in the head? So—

A lot of people had opinions about what I should do, as a gay man and as a disabled person, and all this stuff came up. But just for my sheer safety, I was like, “I have to leave. I have to leave. I have to get out of here.” Interestingly enough, I found myself in this situation where I didn’t have a home. I didn’t have a boyfriend, and oh, and I’d gotten fired from a job that I was working at, not through any fault of mine, but they were laying people off. So it was suddenly—I woke up one afternoon and I was like, “Oh, my God, my life is completely different.” I remember talking to my friend Elia Arce, who’s a fellow performer, and I was sort of weeping about how terrible it all is and she said, “Oh, Greg, you could look at it another way. You’re free. You’re free of all this stuff. And you could find the blessing in that.” She’s, like, “You could go anywhere.” And I thought, “You’re right, I could.” And—Oh, God, it’s moving to tell these stories, because I realize that along the way, all of these really important people in my life, who happen to be other artists, were just there to help move me along. I mean, I know that’s what we’re focusing on,

but that had nothing to do with my art career. That had to do with my friend coming in and saying, “Oh, all you have to do is realize that you’re free, and that you can go anywhere.” And so—God, what a gift, you know?

Ehrlich: Yeah.

04-00:40:03 Walloch: Because you can look at that, you could choose to keep going down another road, the way that—. So I had met—

Ehrlich: So maybe that she loved you as an artist, but she also loved you as a friend?

04-00:40:18 Walloch: Loved me as a friend, and so did all those people. And I love them back, to this day. So, I had met Ellie Covan in LA, through some mutual friends. There’s this very funny story about Ellie Covan. She runs Dixon Place in New York City—

Ehrlich: Right.

04-00:40:44 Walloch: —which has its own long, rich history. I mean, we could go on for days about that, and her commitment to the arts. But there’s this very funny story about the first night that I met Ellie Covan. She came to LA She was having dinner with some friends and they were like, “Oh, great, we want you to come over and meet Ellie, because we think you’d really get along.” They were two performers, Tom Keegan and Davidson Lloyd, Keegan and Lloyd. They used to perform together, and I think still do, in some respect. Ellie was visiting LA, and we were like, “So, what do you want to do tonight?” and she’s like, “Somebody in New York told me that if I’m in LA I’ve got to go see the La Brea Tar Pits,” and we were sort of like, “Hm, okay. Are you sure?” She’s like, “Yeah, I really, really want to do it.” So we get in the car, we drive for a long way.

Then we finally get to the La Brea Tar Pits. She swings open the door on the car, and she goes, “Oh! What is that smell?” then runs up the steps to the tar pits, like, really excited to see it and then leans over the edge. Her face kind of falls, and she’s like, “What the hell’s this?” and we’re like, “It’s the La Brea Tar Pits. It’s what you wanted to see.” She’s like, “Are we at, like, the right tar pits?” As if there’s many. As if there’s many around the California area. We’re like, “Yeah, this is the La Brea Tar Pits.” She goes, “Aw, fuck. I think someone’s pulling a joke on me.” She goes, “I don’t see why this is a big deal. It’s just some tar. It’s like a bubbling hole in the ground.” So that’s my first memory of Ellie, you know? Like, we take this pilgrimage to the La Brea Tar Pits, because she’s so excited to see it. And then it just ends up being a bubbling pit of tar in the exactly what it is. And so she goes, “Oh, I think someone in New York was, you know, being funny, or pulling a joke.” Although, who knows? That person maybe loves the La Brea Tar Pits. But it

was just that’s my first memory of us meeting. She said, “Oh, you know, Greg, if you’re ever in New York, I would really love for you to come do work at Dixon Place.”

Ehrlich: Had she seen your work?

04-00:43:18 Walloch: I think at some point, she’d seen a little bit of my work. And I did. I moved to New York, eventually. Like, not long after that, and I called her. I didn’t understand in New York, that people don’t get picked up from the airport because I was just from California, where you pick people up at the airport. So I called and I said, “I’m coming. Can you pick me up at the airport?” I didn’t realize until after living here, what a bizarre request that is, because no one does that here. Ellie was like, “Sure,” and came and picked me up at the airport and drove me to the first apartment I lived in. Again, really simple moment, but pretty amazing, you know? And—

Ehrlich: And how well did you know her? I mean, had you—

04-00:44:10 Walloch: Not well. At all.

Ehrlich: You’d only had that one visit.

04-00:44:12 Walloch: Oh, just that one visit. Not well at all. But there was an automatic sort of community bond there, because of where I was coming from, and because of the other—you know, I was already in this other community of people, and— yeah. So I remember going to Dixon Place. The first show I saw there was Reno, doing some performance, and just a little space down on the Bowery. Much like Highways’ performance space, in a different way, it reproduced my experience in New York, of artistic community. Ellie continues to this day, to be, Oh God!, such a support. I developed much of my work there. Just so valuable, the gifts that she has given me and the opportunities that she has given me and continues to give me. The artistic community, though, in New York, I feel is a little—at the time, and even now—a little more splintered. That was a very special time in LA It was very cohesive, it was very—But again, it goes back to what’s going on in the world. Like, what’s happening. And as we approach the election now—

Ehrlich: Which is in—

04-00:45:47 Walloch: Just in a few days.

Ehrlich: Yeah. Today is—

Walloch: The 27th.

Ehrlich: —the 27th, and it’s on the 2nd.

04-00:45:53 Walloch: It’s on the 2nd. So, you know, post-9/11, and in a more political climate, I’ve noticed the artistic community and just communities in general coming together more, because there’s a cause, because there’s a reason to. But upon my arrival in New York, from ’92 until now, I have to say, just the artistic community in New York is more splintered. That’s not to say that there’s less commitment or community. But in New York, there are so many different communities, because there are people doing performance art, there are people doing comedy; there’s the gay community; there’s these people; there’s these people; there’s these people. There’s a hundred given things on any night that you could go do and that’s reflected in the artistic community. Instead of it being more of a cohesive community, it’s splintered off. That’s not a negative. But I think you have to work harder to find your tribe, to find who the people are who do what you do.

I mean, of course, it’s amazing, because New York is the place where I got to meet people like Spalding Gray, and Sandra Bernhardt, and Lily Tomlin, and Jerry Stiller, and Ann Meara, and all these people that I love. You know, that I love, that are amazing. So I continue, on down the line, meeting these communities of artists who are there, who are there. I found it, of late, you have to work a little harder for community. And I don’t know, there’s probably some big picture overlay of why—we could talk about a million reasons why that is the way it is. I think it’s a little societal and all that stuff, and the internet, you know. People are now connecting at home, on the internet, on Friendster or any other number of, like, online community things. That’s interesting. It’s another interesting form of community building. I find it fascinating that that’s how people are connecting and I think it’s valid. I think it’s totally valid and valuable. But at the same time, there’s nothing like a live one-on-one experience. That’s why theater and live performance— because as my career’s moved forward, I’ve done film, I’ve done a little TV and all that stuff, and those mediums are great, and they have their own place—but I love the live experience because there’s something about the community that happens in that moment, that’s so powerful.

Ehrlich: So when you first got here, you hooked up, were welcomed in by Ellie, and you performed at Dixon Place. What other venues did you perform at? How did those networks work?

04-00:49:21 Walloch: Right. I performed at a lot of art venues at first here. Like, I was doing Dixon Place and P.S. 122 and—

Ehrlich: Joe’s Pub?

04-00:49:35 Walloch: Joe’s Pub came a little a later, but eventually, because it wasn’t around yet. The Public Theater was there, but they didn’t have the Joe’s Pub part of it.

Ehrlich: What was the flavor of the performances? I feel like you’ve given a good sense of the sort of focus of the performances at Highways. Can you compare it to what it felt like to perform, say, at Dixon Place or P.S.—?

04-00:50:03 Walloch: Sure. Things were changing around me, I was changing. The scene was different, and—it gets a little blurrier, because when you’re sitting in the middle of something, it’s harder to talk about. When you’re away from it, it’s easier to get a grasp. So what the New York environment is, is—

Ehrlich: Because you’re still in it?

04-00:50:34 Walloch: —because I’m still in it, is harder to pin down. But much more frenetic. And just so many people, so many artists. And Dixon Place was a very—it’s moved around a lot.

Ehrlich: Right.

04-00:50:57 Walloch: But Dixon Place originally, as I knew it, it had a location previous to this, but was on the Bowery, in this very small space, which was also Ellie Covan’s house, but a fully functioning theater, in the middle of her house. Amazing that she would commit her life to that. Very intimate. So the performances— what Dixon Place gave me, and what P.S. 122 and spaces like that around New York, small gallery spaces, small art places because things in New York are not as sprawling, in general, intimacy. A lot of intimacy came up. A lot of, like, you’re close; you’re in with the audience. You’re very intimate. The work became a little more polished, I think, because there’s something about New York, where the energy is more intellectual. It’s more cerebral. It’s more polished. I feel that when I go back to California now, I go, “Gosh, you know, there are people who’ve never left Southern California,” and they’re a certain way. I can see it. I feel like had I never gone to New York, I could just be that way. I wouldn’t have a well—

Ehrlich: You see it in the performers.

04-00:52:39 Walloch: I see it in people, more so than performers. I see it in people. California has a certain softness that—New York really toughened me up and rounded me out. In a healthy way. A fair amount—it gave me a good dose of cynicism. But I’ve also managed to keep my, sort of, light intact. That’s a challenge here, at times. But yeah, so there were all those New York influences coming in. I just met even more, like, just more amazing people, amazing artists. And then— just was doing work because there’s such an availability of space to perform. I

was doing so much more work all the time. So instead of in LA, where maybe you would have a show every few months, I found, and it became this really exciting event, that you really prepared, prepared, and then you had this one event. Then it was, like, this big—you just went for it, because it was just this big night. Well, here in New York, I got the opportunity to work more consistently. I got to feel what performance was like and some of that ecstatic specialness wore off, and I was doing it more, like—I approached the stage again and again and again and again. There’s—

Ehrlich: Was it pretty much with similar work? I mean, when you worked—

04-00:54:32 Walloch: In the beginning, similar work. Definitely. The question that’s always asked when I go to colleges, by students and other young artists, “How do I break into the biz?” That’s such a—it’s crazy, because—I mean, I can’t even get it all in this whole interview. Not that that’s the intention of this. But like, there’s just such a breadth and depth of experience that you don’t have an easy answer. Because I’m trying to tell you the story now, and how do you say, “Well, way back in LA—

Ehrlich: Right.

04-00:55:12 Walloch: —I started out doing this.” And “break into the biz.” If there’s any perception that I’m in the biz, it’s definitely in the side door. Yeah, if you want to be, “in the business,” don’t follow my model, because I mean, I am in the business now, in some respects, but like, oh, there’s other ways. But my intention was never to be in the biz, you know? Like, that wasn’t my only goal. The advice that I have [claps hands] and it’s nothing anyone wants to hear, usually, is, “Do it. Get up and do it. Do it wherever you can. Do it front of your friends. Do it on a stage. The more you get up and do it, the better your work will be. The more the trajectory forward will happen.” And they don’t want to know that. They want, “Oh, here’s Tommy Buttola’s phone number.” Because they don’t want to do it, really. I mean, they want to do it, but they sort of vaguely don’t really want to do it. You know, hence the reality TV. It’s kind of perfect, because you can just be who you are and you can be on TV, and it doesn’t really take any prior experience. Like, no experience necessary television. Which is interesting.

So yeah, in the beginning, I was doing art that was very similar to what I was doing in LA. I was going around to really arty spaces, and I did some stuff at the Guggenheim in SoHo. Then eventually, people would say, “Oh, you’re like a comedian. It’s really funny, what you’re doing.” When I was young, I used to be like, “I am not a comedian.” I had this very adverse reaction.

Ehrlich: We just have a few more minutes, again.

04-00:57:19 Walloch: Oh, okay. So then, slowly, things started turning in that direction. People were noticing that the material made them laugh, that the material was comic. So that starts off a whole other element of my—

Ehrlich: Is that then when you made a move to the more straightaway comedy clubs?

04-00:57:46 Walloch: I had joined another group, at that time.

Ehrlich: Well, maybe we should save that for our next—

04-00:57:52 Walloch: And we should talk about that. But yeah, it starts to branch off in another direction, where I’m straddling this line of artist/comedian. And still slightly uncomfortable with the labels. All of them. But it’s interesting. It definitely follows a line.

Ehrlich: Well, so maybe that’s the line we’ll pick up—

Walloch: Tomorrow.

Ehrlich: —tomorrow.

04-00:58:16 Walloch: Ok.

Ehrlich: Great, thanks.

Walloch: Thanks.

[end of session 2]

Interview 3: October 28, 2004 Begin Audiofile 5

Ehrlich: This is our third interview, and it’s October 28th. We just had a little talking without the camera on. [Walloch laughs] Not on purpose, but—. And I’m going to ask Greg again, when we weren’t filming, Greg, you started to tell me about seeing a physical therapist when you were a kid.

05-00:01:03 Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: Will you go there again?

05-00:01:06 Walloch: Sure. And it came out of our conversation yesterday, from talking about mainstreaming, and which periods I were and weren’t in—

Ehrlich: Was that yesterday?

05-00:01:20 Walloch: Yeah, I think so. Didn’t we talk about that yesterday? So physical therapy was one of the periods where I was in the sort of special ed part of school. I remember being in physical therapy, and I was lying on that ball, that exercise ball and two physical therapists were over me. They were just sort of venting about their job and the stresses of their job. And—

Ehrlich: You said before, you thought you were probably five or six.

05-00:01:54 Walloch: Yeah. I was about five or six years old. Pretty young. They’re sort of working with me, and they’re just talking to each other about, “Oh, all these kids. It’s so sad. It’s just so hard to work with them all because, you know, you just see how limited their lives are going to be.” And then they started to talk about me, as if I wasn’t in the room with them, or as if I couldn’t catch on to what they were saying. They said, “Well, you know, like this guy. It’s really sad that he’s not going to ever be able to feed himself or dress himself or live independently and will always need help.” And you know, “But we’re sort of doing what we can,” and—I understand that they—even then, being, like five years old, six years old—I understood that they were just sharing with each other their, you know, sort of grief about their job. But also, it was upsetting, because it was, like, news to me, from these two adults, authority figures, older than me, who were supposed to be there to help me physically. So it’s kind of really intense to be given that information. But also, deep inside of me, it just didn’t resonate. I thought, Well, that doesn’t sound right at all.

Ehrlich: When you told the story before, you used the word “suffering.” You know, that there’s so much “suffering,” speaking for the physical therapists.

Walloch: Oh.

Ehrlich: Did you have the sense of yourself as suffering as a kid? Or that you were working really hard, and struggling, and in pain?

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: I mean, was that part of your reality?

05-00:03:51 Walloch: Right, because they were sort of bemoaning the fact, like, “Oh, it’s so hard to see the suffering and the struggle.” I have to say, since I’ve had this physical body the way that it is from the beginning, I don’t know anything other than that. Is that suffering? It may be perceived as such by someone else looking at me.

I don’t feel or I didn’t feel I mean, I think that has so much to do with my outlook and where I’ve gone in my life, and whatever I’ve done, because I never was walking around feeling like, “I’m suffering, and this is so hard.” I think when someone projects something onto you, and you believe, then that’s where trouble comes in. I mean, I don’t know what made me stick to my guns. I don’t know what made me feel otherwise. But I just had this strong feeling of, like, “That’s not right; that perception doesn’t seem right.” And I was really upset, because I almost thought that they were sentencing me to that existence. Because here they were, the therapists, and they were saying this was going to happen, and I didn’t feel it inside, and I was just distressed. I was like, “Oh, God, that doesn’t feel right!” I remember my mom coming to pick me up, and I was hysterical. I told her what they had said, and how I didn’t know that that was true. That was my reaction to it, like it had been kept from me.

Ehrlich: Mm-hm.

05-00:05:42 Walloch: Like, “Is that true? I didn’t know that that was true.” I asked and my mom said, “Well, it’s not necessarily true. And they don’t—” She explained, “Sometimes adults don’t know.” You know? And it was a weird lesson to learn. You know how everybody talks about that moment where there’s a person in their life, usually their parents, where they become disillusioned, where you think your mother or father are, like, these super-human people, and then something allows that to fall away. Well, I had that experience with doctors and therapists. At, like, six years old. So that was interesting. Because I knew that they weren’t right. I asked my mom if she would actually take me back in and talk to them. I wanted her to tell them that it wrong. And she did. We got back out of the car, we went back into the school, and my mom said, “I heard that you said this.” I remember them being really shocked. Because I think they were just stream of consciousness kind of talking. And—

Ehrlich: Did you think some part of them somehow had made you so much less than who you are, in a way, that they didn’t even quite get that you could hear and understand and pay attention and—?

05-00:07:15 Walloch: Oh, yeah. I think they totally just thought, “Here’s yet another disabled person we’re working with, who probably doesn’t even get what we’re talking about.” And so I think they were surprised. I remember my mom kind of asking them to apologize, in so many words. And they never worked on me I mean, I never had those therapists again, which was interesting. It wasn’t this gigantic scene, but I—

Ehrlich: Did they apologize?

05-00:07:51 Walloch: Yeah, sor—I don’t—it’s cloudy. But yeah, I think they did, and then I never worked with those two particular people. I don’t think that was my mom saying, “Oh, never work with my son again.” But I think a decision was just made to have other people. And it’s interesting. You know, a little sensitivity goes a long way. And it functions in my daily life, by sort of—I have a fair amount of mistrust and questioning authority. And I can see how that comes from a hundred places in my life. But that’s probably one of them.

Here are these people in charge, that were supposed to know what was going on, yet they had this information that was clearly wrong. I mean, I grew up to be an artist living in Manhattan, one of the hardest cities in the world for anyone to get around in. And—I don’t know, you know? But also, it comes from, I think, being gay. Like, here’s society, and it’s one way, and is perceived as one way. Then here I come, with something that’s different. And it gets me to question the picture, on some level, of how things are. Also as an artist, I think it’s natural to ask questions about, like, what is going on here? There’s that famous Martha Graham quote about divine dissatisfaction. You know? And so I think there’s all of that stuff. A healthy—well, mostly healthy; sometimes neurotic—but a healthy [laughs] amount of questioning and mistrust, more on the darker or neurotic side of that. But a lot of sort of questioning authority and questioning the system. And it’s made me a rather ornery person in some aspects in my life, you know?

Ehrlich: I don’t see that part.

05-00:10:04 Walloch: Ornery? I think it’s underneath. I mean, we were talking about Bill Shannon’s work yesterday, and how I was saying on the surface, both of our work might look really different from each other. I realize people sometimes perceive me as very sweet, because of how I look. Not just because of my disability, because just something that I put off, or I give off. And I realize that as an artist, because you’re working with your body, and your image, and the way

that you look. And I play against type. I play against how I’m perceived. So although I may seem really sweet on the surface, I think if you really listen—

Ehrlich: Your work is—

Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: —an incredible mix. It’s sweet and it’s edgy.

05-00:10:57 Walloch: Right, and a little ornery.

Ehrlich: Yeah.

05-00:10:58 Walloch: Like, kind of, you know, tilting things on their side a little bit, all the meanwhile doing this other thing.

Ehrlich: See, I wondered, when you said—I pronounce it ornery—but whether there was some specific place in your non-acting life that you were referring to, in some way—

Walloch: Oh, that I’m—

Ehrlich: —that you’re sort of difficult, as a personality.

05-00:11:26 Walloch: Oh, there’s many ways in my life that I’m difficult as a personality. Not only [background noise] in inter-relational stuff. [laughs] That’s the cat scratching apart the furniture. Not only in inter-relational stuff with other people, but just in my own life. Difficult for myself. You know, giving myself a hard time.

Ehrlich: Yeah.

05-00:11:48 Walloch: Um—but no, it’s interesting. And then his work, you know, looks a little more edgy, on the surface; but underneath, I think, sweet, too. So like any person, I think, their whole personality gets expressed, eventually, on some level.

Ehrlich: Yeah. This is kind of related to the last question about the physical therapy, but obviously, it’s much bigger than this. Since we spent a fair amount of time yesterday beginning to talk about your journey onto the stage, and the different places that you performed, it seems like a good time to catch up and talk a little bit about access issues.

Walloch: Sure.

Ehrlich: Meaning, specifically, you physically getting onto the stage, behind stage, where you need to be, and what that’s been like for you?

05-00:12:51 Walloch: Well, I’m pretty fortunate, in that I’m pretty mobile and able to get around. There’s been some very funny stories about, you know, mishaps. And access, I guess, in a sense. But you talk to any actor or actress, and they’ve fallen into the orchestra pit, or have some version of that story where, “Oh, the lights went out, and I walked into the wall,” or, “I fell into the orchestra pit.” But I have some stories like that, for sure. I was doing a show in New York. I forget where it was, somewhere downtown and the stage was just this big riser. Like, flat. It was a big, flat maybe, like, six feet off the floor and there was a staircase that was movable. The stage, nor the staircase, were fixed; they were, like, movable parts in this auditorium. All during rehearsal, we had practiced in the daylight, so we never had a run with the dark house and the lights on. So when it came time to actually do the piece, I don’t know if it was just the equipment that they had, but I came on and they opened up this gigantic light, like you’d use at a football stadium. It actually had this buzz. It, like, had this noise, and it was hot! It was, like, burning hot light. [laughs] I could actually feel it on my body. It was really inappropriate light to be using indoors in a theater, but I think it’s just what they had. And it was searing my retinas.

But I’m just doing the piece anyway. I get to the end, and they black out. I’m supposed to walk off, so the next act can get come on from the other side of the stage really quickly. Somebody had slightly kicked the stairs about a foot to the left. And so I went off where the glow tape was on the stage, and then was looking for the glow tape on the stairs; only it wasn’t there, because the stairs weren’t there. So I walked at a fast clip off of, like, a six-foot riser. And there was [laughs] this tremendous, like, Boom! But luckily, it was all in the dark. Like, no one saw it. And boy, it was a shock to fall that far. I mean, you know?

Ehrlich: Now, that could’ve happened to anyone—

05-00:15:46 Walloch: That could’ve happened to anyone.

Ehrlich: —who didn’t walk with canes, and whose legs were perfectly—

05-00:15:49 Walloch: Right. So I’ve had a lot of—. You know, and I didn’t feel it at all, of course, because of all the adrenaline. I got up and did the next bit later on. But then, [laughs] after I took my clothes off, I noticed I was, like, bleeding in places. Then when I woke up the next day, I was wracked with pain. But I have a lot of stories like that, like spills, mishaps on the stage, which I think happen all the time, especially if you tour around and you’re in a theaters you haven’t been in before, and just people’s carelessness, et cetera.

But in terms of access, for me, I guess, to get more specific, it hasn’t been a huge issue for me, but it’s been more of an issue for my audience. I was taken to task in the newspaper here in New York by a man who came to see a show,

and claimed that he was denied entry, and wrote this long editorial letter saying, you know, “Greg Walloch sucks, because I’m disabled and I’m gay, and he’s not helping me out.”

Ehrlich: I don’t get it. Why did he say—he was denied in what way?

05-00:17:12 Walloch: Oh. He went to see a show where I was performing, apparently, and there were stairs there, going into the venue and he says that he showed up and was denied entry to the venue; and wrote this letter about what I should be doing as a disabled person to make sure that doesn’t happen, or that I only perform in accessible venues; and sort of took me, the performer, to task over that. So I wrote a reply to the paper. And it was all very brief, and—it’s interesting, though.

This gentleman was a gay man, and I get a lot of, like, mail from—email from fans of my work, which is so flattering. I’m glad that people bother to write. But I don’t always get back to everyone, all the time. And this man had written me. I noticed after the fact, after the piece was published in the paper, this man had written me several sort of mash notes or crush notes, via email, which I never really responded to. But I only really realized all this after the fact. So I thought it was rather suspect that suddenly I’m getting attacked in the newspaper by this person, who had previously written me all these sort of crush-y, funny fan letters. So regardless of how valid his claim was and whether or not he was denied entry, the venue said that it never happened; that he never came, no one ever asked to get down the stairs. Because at that very same venue, we had had many disabled people come to see the show. And there was a way to accommodate them. So regardless of whether the story is true or not, or what his motivations were to get my attention, it was really good, because it brought up disabled access to a disabled performer’s show, in a public forum.

Ehrlich: Yeah.

05-00:19:29 Walloch: And we both exchanged letters in the newspaper. He kind of got what he wanted. He got my attention. He got a response from me. I know who he is, now. But it was just very interesting to be a person with a disability, who I think is very sensitive to all these issues, and to be taken to the mat for it by this person who allegedly didn’t even try to get in. But regardless, the conversation was fascinating.

Ehrlich: The thing I also noticed in something of yours that I watched—maybe it’s in the documentary—that, you know, you moved sort of slowly, compared to other people, onto the stage; but you talked about it.

05-00:20:20 Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: You know, the audience is sort of waiting, and you made some kind of off- hand comment about it.

05-00:20:25 Walloch: Right, I’d say, “I took a little while to get up to the microphone.” And then I said, “That’s my time. Thanks. Goodnight.” As if I’d used all my time—

Ehrlich: Right.

Walloch: —getting up there.

Ehrlich: because they were sort of clunky steps going up, I think—

05-00:20:41 Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: —that you had to navigate.

Walloch: Navigate.

Ehrlich: Which is what you do, anyway.

05-00:20:45 Walloch: But you know what? Here’s the thing that’s great. Being from a performance background, that’s all part of the show. And not in an exploitive way, but— Holly Hughes has this beautiful section in her book, Clit Notes, where she talks about, I think, being in a kid’s play. Or a play as a kid. And it’s The Sound of Music. And she tells this story about how the scenery accidentally falls down, and she sees that the nuns are changing into the Nazi outfits, and the Nazis are changing into the nun outfits, and they’re actually played by the same people. And the pandemonium that happens when the set falls down. She has this moment where she reels back from it all, and sees the whole thing as part of the show.

Ehrlich: Mm-hm.

05-00:21:37 Walloch: Instead of just what the “show” is. It’s such an eloquent expression of what that artistry is, or what that kind of thinking is. And so I realized, from the moment that the audience visibly sees me, and I however I have to maneuver to get up there, that’s part of the performance. The performance doesn’t start just when I open my mouth to speak.

Ehrlich: They see your body, and it’s a body that’s unlike most bodies that they see.

05-00:22:12 Walloch: Yeah. Yeah. They see my body.

Ehrlich: Which, of course, we can’t see on film, but—

05-00:22:18 Walloch: Yeah, we don’t see right now, but—yeah. But I think the same also holds true for everyone.

Ehrlich: Yes.

05-00:22:28 Walloch: Whoever gets up there. We’re checking them out. We have a reaction. So, yeah. It’s not only about when I speak and what I say. It’s a certain awareness that the whole thing is the show.

Ehrlich: So maybe that is a good time now to sort of catch up where we had been yesterday, which is we got you to New York.

05-00:22:53 Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: You’d started performing. More than started. You talked some about performing at Dixon Place, hooking into the network. And you were just about to talk, you had just begun—

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —to talk about Living Room Live. Maybe you could start there.

05-00:23:13 Walloch: Sure. Living Room Live was a comedy group here in New York. The original cast was ten members, and it came together quite by accident. I was with them, I think about ’97. And I know we’re making some leaps, but we’re touching on the stuff. So I was with them in about ’97, and I had a friend, Jeremy Scott Johnson was his name and I met him through some improv classes I was taking here in New York, with the Groundlings, just briefly. Then Jeremy said, “Oh, we’re going to be doing this comedy thing, and you should come down and be involved.” I was doing all these sort of art spaces here, like I had mentioned yesterday. And I said, “Well, comedy; I’m not a comic. Like, not at all.” And he goes, “Oh, Greg, it’s just so great, the stories that you tell. They’ll fit right in. We just want to kind of have this weekly thing, where we do a show.”

So they gathered about ten people together, I don’t think with the intention of having a regular group; I think they were going to cycle people in and out. We performed in this Irish pub on the Upper West Side, and sort of a lot of, like, old Irish guys hang out there, and some young kids, too. But it’s pretty ensconced in that sort of Irish-y New York thing. And we started just getting together as friends, as ten friends, and doing the show week after week, and then it quickly became the rule that we would write and create a brand new show every Tuesday night. We couldn’t do anything old. So we would write

pieces, rehearse them, and put them up completely memorized and polished and done, all in a week’s time.

Ehrlich: Wow!

05-00:25:35 Walloch: And that became sort of the hook of the show. “You’ll never see anything twice.” [laughs] And when you throw that down, the audience will really call you on it. Because we started to really build an audience of regulars, who, if they saw repeated material, would begin to bellow and boo and stuff like that. So we quickly, cohesively gelled as a ten-person group. Sort of to our surprise; that wasn’t the intention. And then it just rolled forward. The show gained a lot of momentum, and—it was such good training for me to be up in front of an audience every week, fly or fail, with something brand new. It got me over this idea—it sort of gave some equanimity to the value that we put on a good show or a bomb or a bad show. Because there were nights where we bombed more than we succeeded, but that became thrilling, almost. So you could be up there completely failing, but it was really fun. And I think it was good to experience that.

Ehrlich: So part of what was fun was just knowing that you were failing, but you were still hanging in there, and you were making it happen, and it was real.

05-00:27:08 Walloch: Oh, that you were completely flying by the seat of your pants! And it was sort of bold and courageous. It was amazing, as a writer. It just made me realize that I could create on the spot. And again, back to the improv. I keep going back to this, having it be all spontaneous. Then I stayed with that group for about three years, and then, like many groups of people, there was a lot of, you know, sort of infighting and weird stuff, and wonderful stuff. But the group started to sort of crack around the edges a little bit.

Ehrlich: Can you say a little bit about what the membership in the group was?

Walloch: Oh.

Ehrlich: Names, if you want; but also, just men, women, mix. What was the—?

05-00:28:04 Walloch: Oh, absolutely. In the beginning, they were all straight guys, as the comedy world tends to be pretty guy heavy sometimes. So there were—

Ehrlich: And it was ten?

05-00:28:21 Walloch: It was ten members altogether, eventually. So they were mostly straight guys, and you know, each unique and beautiful in their own way. I don’t mean to just put them all over there. And then one woman, and myself, being the only

gay guy. And then the girlfriends of the two men that started it, they eventually kind of filtered into the group more. In the beginning, they were sort of there watching every week, and being supportive of their boyfriends who were in the group, but weren’t in the group in the beginning. But then it was really this great thing. They became very inspired to write and get up there. So we had, then, two more women in the group, which made number nine and number ten. So I guess it was originally, like, eight people, with one woman, all men, and me being the only gay guy, and then the two women coming in a little later.

Ehrlich: And what about ethnicity?

05-00:29:35 Walloch: Ethnicity. We were all white folks. I think that’s right, for the most part. And—yeah. But very different. I mean, really different in other ways, like—. And that’s what’s beautiful about coming together and collaborating, by accident or on purpose. I’ve met people I might never have met in my life. There’s a guy in the group who was really young, in the beginning, at the time. Tim Pulnik is an amazing, very funny comedian, who tours around on the road. But in the beginning, he wasn’t the most gay-friendly guy you’ve ever met and by the end of the three years in that group, we were, like, the two closest friends. So it was really interesting, because here he is, this young guy meeting this gay guy in the group, who made him uncomfortable in the beginning. It was only through our absolutely sort of jocular, crude sense of humor that we bonded, and that doesn’t necessarily come out in my work all the time, but there’s this other side of me well, maybe it does.

Ehrlich: It does a little.

05-00:31:06 Walloch: But there’s this other side of me, who, like, loves all that stuff. And all that, like, really sort of immature—I should say it probably doesn’t come out to the degree that it came out—

Ehrlich: Ok.

05-00:31:23 Walloch: —between us at the time. But we ended up really bonding, in a weird kind of way. And although there was an explosion and some fighting between all the members, eventually, and people fell away at different points, I’m pretty much in touch with everyone, and I love everyone. And it was such a gift, such an interesting experience to be in that group.

Ehrlich: So did the performing stay focused at that bar? Was that it?

05-00:31:54 Walloch: The performance stayed pretty much focused at that bar. We toured a little bit around. We sometimes, as a group, would go out to a comedy club in the city.

I remember we toured in the Hamptons for a little while. It’s hard to wrangle ten people. You know? So it was a challenge to try to take ten people on the road. But we did it. I mean, that was fun. We all packed in a van and went off and performed.

Ehrlich: And what kind of venues did you perform in?

05-00:32:28 Walloch: More like sort of bar type atmosphere. And that’s also an interesting thing, because whenever I go to speak at colleges or do things with a sort of gay and/or disability bent to them, people always ask about the gay audience or the disabled audience, which I always find a bizarre question, because it’s not like a bunch of disabled people get together and all go to the theater at once, and then you have this disabled audience. Or it’s not like a bunch of gay folks congregate and go to the same show. And so I’m here to say all audiences, all the time, are fairly mixed. But I was performing to the bar crowds, which, if you had to give them a type, largely, probably heterosexual college-y drinking crowds. And—

Ehrlich: Mostly men?

05-00:33:30 Walloch: Well, men and, like, their dates. You know what I mean?

Ehrlich: Yes.

05-00:33:34 Walloch: Men and—men on the lookout for chicks, and chicks on the lookout [laughs] for—

Ehrlich: Right.

05-00:31:06 Walloch: —whatever that is. And, you know—so I have this really sort of opposite—I mean, I think people go, “Oh, you’re gay and disabled, and you do this really great stuff, and gay and disabled people from each community must love you.” But that wasn’t my experience. I sort of came up this other way. I was doing bars and—at least in New York. In LA, different. It was different at Highways. I was doing, you know, very multicultural art space artist performance. But then when I came to New York, it started to turn more towards comedy venues. Just because they’re well, one, through Living Room Live, I got more focused, in a way that was comedic. I didn’t really change the work at all, though; that’s the secret.

Ehrlich: So it’s that the venue changed?

05-00:34:35 Walloch: The venue changed. And that’s such a fun thing to learn. You can get up, actually, and do a fairly serious piece in a comedy club, and there are parts of

it that are funny. There are parts of it that become funnier, simply because of where you are.

Ehrlich: That’s interesting.

05-00:34:51 Walloch: And I almost changed—some pieces, I changed nothing, did them as is, and suddenly presented them as comedic, in a comedic setting, and then they were. Weird. Like, some people would say, “Oh, it’s very different, what you do. We don’t really see people tell stories. Like, what’s this storytelling thing?” Challenging, in front of really drunk, drunk people.

Ehrlich: Because they can’t follow the story?

05-00:35:20 Walloch: Because it’s hard to follow the line of logic. Not that there’s any deep line of logic. It’s just, like, when you’re wasted it’s hard to pay attention. [laughs] And so—yeah, it affected my writing, it affected my style. It made me so comfortable talking in front of people. Because no one in that show, in that comedy show, liked to emcee. Everyone hated it. They all wanted to do what they’d written and what they’d planned. So I was stuck emceeing a lot. And in the beginning, I felt like it was a stuck situation. But I kind of found that I loved it. I loved just coming out and talking to the audience and having it work; and not even having written it, just introducing the next person, being conversational. And it really helped me in my own work. Because it wasn’t like I sort of left what I was doing and was now a comedian, or now doing comedy. I was doing the Greg Walloch solo show, solo work, in tandem with—

Ehrlich: And the Greg Walloch show was a version of, or exactly White Disabled—

05-00:36:38 Walloch: The stage show known as White Disabled Talent.

Ehrlich: White Disabled Talent.

Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: Was it sort of that as a set show?

Walloch: Well—

Ehrlich: I mean, did that shift and change?

05-00:36:48 Walloch: —White Disabled Talent, the show has changed and shifted a lot. And almost shifted so much, I mean, I’m doing completely new shows. But it would always shift, but it was always under that banner, because it had some few,

like, signpost pieces that remain the same. And it’s a great title. People really responded to that title, so I kept it. But it was essentially the same show, with—I’m the kind of performer, I can’t—each time I perform, something is new. That’s how I keep myself motivated and interested. Because I give myself—and it goes back to the improve—I give myself the challenge of talking about something, or performing something I’ve never done. And it’s satisfying to know that I can produce it instantly. It’s not always great. It’s not always great. But again, there’s value in failing big, and learning to love it, because then you don’t have to fear it anymore, as an artist, or as a creative person who’s working. Like, get that out of the way. So you failed, so people didn’t like it. So? I mean, and don’t hang too much value on the successful stuff, either. That’s the lesson. [laughs] It’s like, find some place where it looks sane, and sort of stay there, you know?

I’ve had some stuff that’s been really successful, in terms of, like, media and famousness, or whatever that is, or people recognize you. And that’s great. But there’s nothing to that, really. That’s, like—it’s very temporal. There’s nothing to grab in that. Other than you get a little boost, you get picked up a little bit. But life’s going to come in and be life the very next day. I mean—

Ehrlich: It doesn’t sustain you for the long haul.

05-00:39:05 Walloch: Oh. Not even for, like—it doesn’t even sustain you for, like, a second, if you really look at it. You know what I mean?

Ehrlich: Yes.

05-00:39:14 Walloch: Because there’s always something to confront you. I mean, I remember when I, in 1994, went to Australia. I was asked to go to Australia. I was invited to perform at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It’s the biggest gay festival on the planet. Like, that takes place anywhere.

Ehrlich: Yeah.

05-00:39:41 Walloch: And it’s really interesting to see how that affects the acceptance of gay culture. Sydney, Australia loves gay people. In part because, I think, it’s true; like, it’s real. But also, it makes the city the most money of any event throughout the year. So that’s really reflected in their love and acceptance of the gay community. And that’s great. That’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I was invited to go to Sydney, Australia and perform. And that was a really—

Ehrlich: What year was it, Greg?

05-00:40:18 Walloch: 1994. And that was, like, kind of this great moment in my career, because although I had had some successes up to that point, it was extremely validating to have somebody fly me to a foreign country, put me in a hotel, and say, “We want you for six weeks. And everything’s paid for, and show up and do your show and—” It was hugely successful, in a way that I hadn’t really experienced yet. It was, like, a thousand seat theater, and it filled up the whole run, and lots of press, lots of publicity, and everyone’s happy. And everyone’s happy. Because it’s just going really well. And that was interesting. See, I have this experience where, when I leave the country, there’s this totally different reaction. Like, I went to London earlier—I’m jumping backwards. I went to London my senior year of high school to perform there. So I guess it was, like, ’88. My graduating year.

Ehrlich: And was that when you were studying with Denise?

05-00:41:45 Walloch: Denise. I was still studying with Denise. But I got this idea, because when you’re eighteen—jumping backwards a little bit—and you’re just full of that, “Ah, I’m just going to do this thing, and I will not fail.” And you know, the whole, like, “I’m young and I can do whatever.” So I got on the phone and I organized some performances over in the UK. And my parents were sort of like—because I guess I was seventeen, going on eighteen, going towards graduation. My parents were like, “Yeah, yeah. If you get it organized, you can go.” Kind of a little bit like, “It’s not going to happen.” But I got on the phone and I got it organized, and they kept their word, which I appreciated. That did many things, you know? It started me in the direction—because I’m not just the guy who shows up and performs. I mean, I’m wearing all the hats. I’m booking it, I’m getting it out there. So it’s a—

Ehrlich: And you don’t have a manager.

05-00:44:44 Walloch: Not currently. I’ve been off and on with managers.

Ehrlich: We can get into that later.

05-00:42:49 Walloch: Yeah. But yeah, it was an interesting experience to go to Liverpool. I performed in Manchester, at a place called the Green Room, which is a great art space; I hope it’s still around. I mean, I’m not sure. I’m sure it is; it was really amazing. And a place called the Corner House, I believe, as well. And then there was a place in Liverpool called the Blue Coat Chambers, where I did a little presentation, as well. But yeah, I went to Australia in ’94. Then I spent a lot of time in Canada, these past couple of years, and again, did a live show in Canada. The documentary piece that was done about me showed in Canada a few months after. I was on the cover of this newspaper over there, like their version of the Village Voice. And was on some TV shows, and—it’s

really interesting, because the television show looks like Regis and Kelly, you know? But it’s not, it’s other people. Or the late night show looked like David Letterman, but it’s another guy. So it made me less nervous. I could really walk out and act like it was all normal, because I didn’t have any nerves about meeting these Canadian personalities, because I had no idea who they were. So it made it easier. It was like, almost like Bizarro World. It was like the opposite land or whatever. But it’s just really weird to me that I’ve had this experience where I travel to other places, outside of the United States, and the popularity, or the acceptance of the work just seems to really sort of skyrocket.

Ehrlich: What do you make of that?

05-00:44:49 Walloch: I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if I can attach a lot of meaning to it. In a sort of mumbo-jumbo, new age-y kind of way, am I getting some message that I’m supposed to, you know, leave home and go to this other pla—I mean, don’t you wonder, in your life, when you take certain actions, and you are met with good results consistently, it makes you think, “Hm, maybe I’m supposed to be doing this.” But I think, you know, I try to follow my heart, if I can and I’m hoping that always keeps me going in the right direction. And I don’t have to worry. I can do both. Because the out of town engagements continue. I mean, I went to Ireland and performed there a couple of times, and I think, like, in a week or two, I’m going to Moscow. And weirdly enough and it comes in threes. Strangely enough, I got invited to Moscow; and shortly after—and I don’t think they’re connected—I got an inquiry about going possibly to Hong Kong; and then an inquiry two days later about going to Heidelberg,Germany, you know?

Ehrlich: What kind of venues are these? Is there a connection there between either disability or gay community stuff? Or are these—?

05-00:46:22 Walloch: Well, the event in Moscow is a disability festival. The Hong Kong thing, I don’t think it’s specific. The Heidelberg event is solo theater. International solo theater. So yeah, they’re touching on elements of what I do, but not necessarily gay or disabled, not all of them. Oh, and another thing. I did this show, I forget what it was, but it was called International Performance Art Day and it was in Waterford, Ireland, where it’s, like, a college town in Ireland. It’s also where they make the crystal. And it was profound. I mean, that was amazing. I can’t quite place that in time right now. It was after Australia, in ’94, but not recent. So I’m a little—

Ehrlich: Maybe late nineties?

05-00:47:27 Walloch: Late ninety-ish. And all of these amazing artists were gathered from, like, Poland and Finland and Russia and England and Ireland. I mean, I was the

U.S. person. It was just so amazing to see all these artists from all around the world and to stay with them and, you know, [laughs] to sleep in the same quarters and shower. You know, because when you’re in Europe, often, you all go down to the bathroom at the end of the hall, and it’s not in your room, you know? So I got to know these artists in a way where, like, we’re showering together, we’re bunking in the same rooms, and we don’t all speak the same language, you know? But it was really—God, so profound. I mean, I’m so—it’s such a I feel—so that’s what I—for all the hard stuff that this business is for me sometimes, that’s when I’m very touched by—I would’ve never met—I think his name’s Roi Varra, from Finland. I would have never met him, probably, if not for that. I wouldn’t have met all those people from around the world. So beyond the performance, beyond the work, beyond the identity issues, that’s what it’s about. It’s about making these connections, nd I don’t mean, like, show biz connections but making these connections with other people. It’s about making that connection with the audience, and the audience making that connection with you, the artist. And more than anything else, that’s the motivating force.

Ehrlich: Is that, connection?

05-00:49:34 Walloch: That connection. And I think on some level, we’re all looking for that connection and that validation. I think because everything is so therapy-ized these days, we’ve made validation, like, a bad like, it has a bad connotation. Like, “Oh, you need to be validated.” But I think in a very, like in a very real way, people are looking to have a moment where we both connect on something. It’s validating in a healthy way for us. And that’s why comedy works. That’s why comedy is interesting. Because someone brings up a mundane experience, and observes it in a different way, and you, an audience member, laugh because you connect with it. You never looked at it that way, perhaps, but you have a moment of validation. So we laugh, from the soul. You know. I studied with this brilliant group here in New York. They were called Burn Manhattan. And they were just an amazing improv group. I think they’ve since disbanded. But they used to talk about that, the laughter of the soul; that you’re going for the laughter of the soul, that place where you strike on something true. And simple; it’s not all as fancy or profound as it sounds.

Ehrlich: When did you study with them?

05-00:51:15 Walloch: I studied with them probably late nineties, early 2000. And what a group of talented men. I mean, I think there were five men, and I took, like, master classes with each of them. I started doing a thing in New York where, like many comedians do, or performers, booking my own show. Like, after Living Room Live, because we were a functioning organization, it gave me some organizational skills. So did Highways. Highways was very good about that.

Ehrlich: Learning the business end.

05-00:51:55 Walloch: Yeah. Taught me how to be a good artist. Highways taught me how to document and catalogue and—

Ehrlich: Which we, of course, are thankful for.

05-00:52:04 Walloch: Yeah. So I had really good teachers in that aspect, as well. And Tim Miller, not only a brilliant performer, but an amazing businessperson. There’s no denying that. He’s out there booking his own stuff, just like I am, you know? So Living Room Live, in some sense, as clunky a model as it was, taught me some business. And so also, in the recent past, I booked my own shows. Because I kept in New York, I was suddenly going from performing in LA, like, once every few months, to performing five nights a week.

Ehrlich: Right.

05-00:52:48 Walloch: Because there’s venues everywhere. I don’t necessarily do that now, because that there’s really some wear and tear involved in that kind of commitment But there was a period where I was out there five nights a week. And the great thing is, I was meeting so many amazing, moving performers. Not only comedians, musicians, just amazing people. Led me to book my own room for a while. I got a room on the Upper West Side called Venue. And so I did this night called Event, at Venue. I booked singers and variety acts, comedians, performance artists, and for me, I got to be, like, you know, I got to be the person who brings all these threads together.

Ehrlich: So the way it worked is you rented the space?

05-00:53:44 Walloch: I didn’t rent the space, I just went into Venue and I spoke with them and said, “I want to do this night.” They said, “If you can bring enough people in, we’ll keep it going.” And I did.

Ehrlich: So it was up to you. So you emceed it?

05-00:53:58 Walloch: I emceed it, and—

Ehrlich: And you—

05-00:53:59 Walloch: —and performed in it. But I took a backseat a lot, because there’s this part of me that loves producing and loves putting evenings together. I would emcee it, but it was really about, here are my beautiful friends, who I love, who I want you to know about. I got to bring in these performance artists with these

straight up rock and roll musicians. Or, like, comedians with someone reading a dramatic piece. The great thing is, people have met each other and collaborated together, out of meeting each other there. And that’s great. I mean, as short lived as that was; it was only about a year. I think I did it maybe in 2000.

Yeah, there’s a great band that was called Swamp Belly, who performed there. There’s another band called the Moonlighters, and they performed on the same evening. The Moonlighters are sort of this, you know, steel guitar, like twenties era female vocals, with, like, Hawaiian steel guitar. Very interesting, in its own way. Then Swamp Belly, they call themselves, like, new hillbilly. So it was, like, this sort of hillbilly kind of music. They met each other and just hit it off instantly, and then have blended together since, and made this new group called Bog’s Visionary Orchestra. They hadn’t met before. And, you know—and they called me one day and they said, “Oh, God, Greg, we’re recording an album and we met at your show. And thanks.” And that’s awesome.

Ehrlich: So you took some of that energy that’s been turned towards you by people like Tim Miller—

Walloch: Oh, yeah.

Ehrlich: —Ellie Covan—

Walloch: Sure.

Ehrlich: —and shared that with other artists.

05-00:56:10 Walloch: Yeah, and it—and in no way was I sort of like the elder person, but I understand what it is. You encounter so many artists and if you’re at all awake and alive and feeling, you’re going to be motivated to do that, I think. Because you just go, “God! All these people are great. We need to put on a show.” Like, “We need to show everyone who this community is.” And like, back to high school. I wasn’t just in one clique. I had a diverse community around me. And I still do. Because there is a difference between comedians in New York, and people in rock bands, and vaudevillian acts, and performance artists. I mean, they don’t often blend together. And sometimes they do. But it’s really fun to have that kind of evening, because people meet each other, who maybe might have never met before.

Ehrlich: I think we should stop there.

05-00:57:19 Walloch: Ok. I saw your red light. [referring to the camera]

Begin Audiofile 6

06-00:00:12 Ehrlich: So, it’s still our third interview. You were saying something [laughs] about Living Room Live.

Walloch: Oh.

Ehrlich: Jumping back there.

06-00:00:23 Walloch: How it really mattered? [laughs] Yeah, we’re recollecting a little [about] how it so mattered at the time, when we were mad, whatever we were mad about. But we were so pissed off when it started to kind of break apart a little bit. And God, it was the world, you know, and we felt so righteous and so pissed off at each other. And now, talking about it, not even—because I was with them for three years, and it was, like, ’98, yeah, it wasn’t that long ago—but how much that phase, how much none of that matters. I love them all so much. But in the moment, when you’re in a group, and the sort of stuff you commit against each other in the name of whatever, a lot of that went on. Like, a sort of behind the story of this group. But it’s normal. Ten people together is a lot of personalities. And so slowly, they started to break away.

Ehrlich: How many of you were on stage at once?

06-00:01:41 Walloch: Sometimes all of us. Sometimes one of us. It just depends on what people had written. And there was a lot of stuff that came out of that. Certain people were favorites and got used in everyone’s work, and other people didn’t get used as much. That didn’t bother me so much, because I had my solo work going on, all at the same time. So if I was heavily featured in a show one week and was barely in a sketch the next week, or maybe even one sketch, it was okay, because I had this whole other Greg Walloch thing that existed outside of Living Room Live. So eventually, it began to deteriorate, at least that initial group of them.

Then the two men who ran it, Darrell Shipley and Jeremy Scott Johnson, were very smart, and recast it, saw that it worked and just kept recasting new people in, until eventually, the entire cast changed. And they ran—I think they just disbanded, like, last year or the year before. They had a really good, long run, and I would go back and do, like, guest spots, even. And some people, I think [it’s] still a little raw for some of the members, and maybe they don’t feel the same way about—yeah, it’s interesting how we came together. It was this really frenetic, electric, amazing time. Then it lasted only for so long. But then the group itself went on. But I’m very proud to have been a founding member of that.

And at the same time, I was also booking the Venue show and performing in, you know, really straight up comedy clubs, sometimes five nights a week, and met amazing people there, not only just great comedians, but like, friends, you know? Allison Castillo, who is an amazing comedian. So naturally funny and—we’ve done a couple of shows together, just because we felt like we wanted to collaborate, and, you know, she’s a good friend still to this day. And just meeting different people out there on the scene, other solo performers.

That’s what happened when I came to New York. I mean, I met all those people at Highways, that group of artists; and then I came to New York and I met the people in New York, like Reno and Spalding Gray and Mike Albo, and just all these really amazing performers, solo performers. The community became bigger. The community became larger. And as I mentioned, you know, musicians—performed with Johnny Fox, the sword swallower. He’s a pretty famous sword swallower and a great guy. And so a little of something from everywhere, and—but still, my heart is in the tribe of, like, solo performers, you know, like Spalding Gray, and Lily Tomlin and David Sedaris, who’d kind of a brilliant solo voice. And so even though I seem to have my fingers in a lot of pots, in my heart of hearts, it always goes back to that kind of work. That’s what I do. I’m a storyteller.

06-00:05:36 And speaking of storytelling, I started to work with this organization called the Moth, which is in New York City, and it’s an urban storytelling event. They have a theme, where they have people from different walks of life come in to tell a story. Joey Xanders was the woman who was running it at the time. Someone on her board, Joshua Wolf Shenk, had recommended me to her. And it’s funny. This is an interesting story about how I came to be in the Moth, and how the Moth had such an impact on my career. I performed at this place downtown on Broadway called, like, the Lovey Lounge or something. It had this very strange name and I don’t even think it had a sign outside. It was one of those places, and it was for this evening that this guy runs in the city, called Deep Dish Cabaret. His name’s Steven Kosloff, and he’s sort of, I forget where he saw me, but he booked me in that show. It was really rowdy. Like, the audience was loud, and [laughs] there were some drugs in the air, there was some alcohol. And it was also very cool and downtown, as well, and not associated with the Moth, but its own evening, you know, its own evening of performance. And in this place where we performed, it was a boxing ring by day, and performance space by night.

Ehrlich: The same ring. I mean, the boxing ring was the performing—?

06-00:07:33 Walloch: Was the performance space. I wish I knew the name of the artist who was running that whole thing. Kind of a famous performance art person; someone who I don’t—I wish I could recall. [David Leslie] Sometimes it totally blurs out. But anyway, we did this show in the boxing ring. And I did it for free. I

did it totally for free, just because someone was like, “Hey, we’re doing this thing called Deep Dish Cabaret, and it’s a show in a boxing ring,” and that sounded really exciting to me. I got up and did the show there in the boxing ring, and that’s where Joshua Wolf Shenk, the writer, had initially seen my work, and said, “We would like you to come do this thing called the Moth.” And very strange, you know, where connections begin, because I’m in the Village performing in this strange place, and he sees me, and then he introduces me to Joey Xanders, and she’s like, “Yeah, we’d like you to tell a story.” And so through working with her, I come to tell this story about cake, and going south.

Ehrlich: Which is one of your signature pieces.

06-00:09:02 Walloch: Well, thanks. I like to think so, too. I like—

Ehrlich: That’s my sense of it.

06-00:09:07 Walloch: I like to think so, too. I felt like in the documentary film, Keeping it Real, or Fuck the Disabled, I didn’t feel like that piece was portrayed well, but we could talk more about that. But I feel like that’s—and that was a bit of a heartbreak, because I really love that piece. There’s a lot about that piece I really love. But the great thing was, previous to that I’d gotten involved with the Moth, and I told the story. And the idea was, you don’t have any notes, and you just have an idea, and you tell a story based on a theme.

The evening that we did was called “Book of Job Stories,” and so that was the theme. It was down at City Hall Restaurant in New York on a very blustery, rainy night, and the other people on the bill were Robert Thurman, Uma Thurman’s father, who’s also this, you know, spiritual scholar, you know, Buddhist spiritual scholar; and Andre Gregory, the actor from My Dinner with Andre; and Patty Griffin, the amazing, beautiful singer; and Joshua Wolf Shenk, the board member who organized it; and myself. And I got up to tell that cake story, and I was so nervous, you know, because look at who I’m on the bill with. A little intimidating. Like, Robert Thurman, who is so amazing, so interesting, and Andre Gregory, and Patty Griffin, of course, and Joshua Wolf Shenk himself. I got up to tell the story, and it just sort of came out like that. It was this moment where I was out of my own way, and it just was great, you know? And a really heady experience. I mean, there were writers in the audience like AM Homes and all these amazing people, who were saying, you know, who were like, “Oh, my God, that was amazing. You blew Andre Gregory out of the water!” That’s not even—that’s not what it’s about, but people were just very sort of gushing and, “Oh, it was so great. It was so great.” So it was kind of this really shining moment in my history. I mean, I’ve done a lot of things. Like I went to Australia and I did this big show, and I was on the Howard Stern show, and there’s been a lot of more, like, media

successful things. But this was a moment in my career where I’m with these other artists who I so love and so respect, and I get to share the stage. And that was, like, exciting.

06-00:12:17 So I continued my association with the Moth, and we did a show taped at the Museum of Television and Radio, on Kurt Anderson’s Studio 360, which is on Public Radio International. I got up and told the cake story again. Also, you know, in another sort of amazing evening of artists, and that was recorded and played on the air. I referred to it earlier in the interview how, like, that young kid had heard it on the radio. And that was just amazing. So that little story from a bigger show was like the single, the 45. I’m showing my age but the 45 that kind of went out and had its own life. And I’m really glad it got sort of another life, because as I said, I felt like in the documentary, it wasn’t portrayed—I think it’s one of the strongest pieces in life; but in the documentary Keeping it Real, it was kind of watered down. So my association with the Moth was really interesting and brought me a lot of great stuff. I mean, I’m still in contact with Patty Griffin, and I have connections with these people, and—

06-00:13:52 Kind of amazing. And it kept sort of rolling forward, because then from Kurt Anderson’s show, some other NPR shows had me re-record the piece for them, and so it played on NPR quite a bit. So I love that that piece sort of had its own life. What the Moth brought me at the time was so special and all these other things were going on, because we started to make the documentary film, Keeping it Real. And although people would think that’s the sort of glitzy, cool, glamorous thing, it was really the Moth, at the time, that was the most creatively satisfying thing going on for me. And again, it’s that irony of what people—

Ehrlich: Perceive?

06-00:14:42 Walloch: Yeah. How it’s perceived, and then what’s really going on. And I just, real quick, before we move on to that, I wanted to jump back. I mentioned the Howard Stern show and that was also kind of, in a different way, a hallmark moment.

Ehrlich: Hold on one sec.

Walloch: Sure.

Ehrlich: Can we try to get a couple of years here? Do you know when you did the Moth? Roughly.

06-00:15:02 Walloch: The first time—I know that—gosh, I can’t recall when the actual show was at City Hall—

Ehrlich: But do you have a sense?

Walloch: —Restaurant. Well, might have been—oh, gosh, it might have been, like, around 2000 or ’99. I’m bad at time.

Ehrlich: That’s okay.

Walloch: I really am.

Ehrlich: Well, it gives us just some sense.

Walloch: Because—

Ehrlich: And the Howard Stern show was—?

06-00:15:38 Walloch: Was early, like ’98, because I was still in Living Room Live. And it helped bring—

Ehrlich: Okay.

06-00:15:48 Walloch: It helped to bring a lot of publicity to Living Room Live.

Ehrlich: So how did that Howard Stern connection happen?

06-00:15:57 Walloch: That was also very funny. I mean, because what was so ironic about the Moth is, it’s sort of like this kind of very dignified event. You know? But it happened because I did a show in a boxing ring downtown. That’s what I think is sort of great. And that’s why I’m up for—because like, people have said to me, “Greg, your career is so bizarre, because you’ve performed at the Guggenheim, and you’ve done all these very, you know, sort of lofty things. But you’ve also been on the Howard Stern show, you’ve performed in, like, burlesque shows.” And so sometimes people [question me] like, “What the hell are you doing?” But I think it’s all connected. I mean, sure, I guess you should have a career idea, maybe you want to go here and there. But my philosophy is sort of like, If I’m game for it, and it sounds fun, I’m there. And so I think it’s great that the Moth connection came out of me performing in Deep Dish Cabaret, which is pretty—they’re not disconnected, but just different. But the Howard Stern thing came from—I was doing comedy one night at Stand Up New York, and Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, had come to see the show, and he mentioned me in his column. Oh, I can’t even remember. I mean, he just made some really kind of funny irreverent quote and talked about how much he liked the show. And I have this line in my show where I say, “My goal is to become the most beloved disabled performer in America. I’m going to kick that Christopher Reeve’s ass.” And it usually gets a big response. And now—

Ehrlich: I know. I wanted to ask you about that.

06-00:17:57 Walloch: And now that Christopher Reeve has passed on—

Ehrlich: Which just happened.

Walloch: Which just happened—

Ehrlich: A few weeks ago.

06-00:18:02 Walloch: —a few weeks ago, that line has a whole—it’s interesting, because somebody—I hate to be jumping around so much, but some—

Ehrlich: It’s okay.

06-00:18:12 Walloch: Somebody came to my show at the Public Theater—I’ve been there a couple of times—and I said that line. I said—and it’s this big ironic, overdone section. And I said that line, like, “My goal is to become the most beloved disabled performer in America. I’m going to kick that Christopher Reeve’s ass.” And this woman says out loud, “He loves that,” and I said, “What?” and she’s like, “He loves it.” I’m like, “Who are you?” And I often do that. I’ll stop the—I mean, because you are in that room talking to that audience, you might as well address what’s going on. So she’s like, “I work with him. He loves the challenge. He loves it.” And so I said, “Oh, I could take him.” You know. I totally just—you know, “I could take him. Tell him I could take him.” And after the show, she came up and she goes, “You know, I work with Christopher Reeve, and he knows that you say that, and he thinks it’s hysterical.” And so in his passing this past couple of weeks, as strange as that line is, and as weird of a proclamation as it is for me to make—because it’s all for the joke, or whatever it means about disability and whatever—

Ehrlich: People have very strong feelings about Christopher Reeve, but all over the place.

06-00:19:42 Walloch: Absolutely. And everywhere. And what it means, what it doesn’t mean. But it’s great that this woman’s like, “Oh, he loves it. He thinks it’s funny.” And so it’s poignant. It’s poignant to me. I’m glad I got that message. I never met him, but I’m glad I got that message. And—

Ehrlich: So what does his death mean to you?

06-00:20:04 Walloch: [sighs] Wow. Well—I think he did—in the face of, like, this huge interruption in a life, he really took the opportunity to reinvent himself, and that’s not inspiring in a saccharine or syrupy way, that’s inspiring in a very, like, you

know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. [laughs] Although a friend of mine who’s a cancer survivor, he changed the quote. Mark Allen, the guy who interviewed me on the web, he changed the quote. He’s survived testicular cancer. And he changed it to, “What doesn’t kill you, almost killed you” [laughs] and I think that’s probably more accurate. Or I think actually, he says, “What doesn’t kill you, almost fucking killed you.” So I’m impressed that Christopher Reeve really took the opportunity to reinvent himself, not as this superhuman comic book hero superego that’s always hanging around him, and not as this poster child persona, but just as a man, a very real man going through something really real, and using his celebrity to bring attention to spinal chord injuries and stem cell research, and that’s profound. And any sort of extra sugar sweetness that we dump on that, that’s us doing that. It’s inevitable. It happens to me. And—I’ve come to learn, and I’m still learning, you can’t control what other people think of you.

06-00:07:33 But following where we were before, Michael Musto had come to the show and heard me say that line, and wrote about it in his column. A producer on the Howard Stern show saw the column and showed it to Howard Stern on the air, and Howard Stern read, I think, the Michael Musto piece. I wasn’t a regular listener of Howard Stern. It’s so early in the morning. And I wasn’t—I didn’t dislike him, but I wasn’t a huge fan, either. They called me up. They called and woke me up and they said, “Hi, we’re calling from the Howard Stern show. Would you like to be on the air with Howard?” And it’s, like, six in the morning. And I was like, “I, I guess so.” And I don’t even remember the exchange. He said, “Oh, great, because Howard Stern, we’re reading about your thing in the paper, and—

Ehrlich: Now, was that live?

06-00:23:02 Walloch: Yeah, and shocking, kind of. Early in the morning. And you’re like, “Is this real? Who is this?” It was all of a minute, if that. He goes, “Hi, it’s Howard Stern. We’re reading your thing in the paper, and you say you’re going to kick Christopher Reeve’s ass.” And I said, “Oh, you know, yeah.” Or I explained what it was about. He’s like, “Well, I think that’s great.” He’s like, “We’re going to have you on soon.” So I was like, “Great,” and I guess I committed to it on the spot. I mean, I don’t know. I’m glad, I mean, I’m so glad I did. So Howard Stern was then inspired by me, although I’m not sure I want to take responsibility, but so he claims, by me, to do something he called, Handicap Star Search. He had all of these disabled performers, various disabled people come in and do material. I think it was really, of course, meant to be provocative, in that Howard Stern way. But what was really interesting is how real it was, in a certain sense. It was just an interesting experience to go on there. This was broadcast on television, as well as the radio. So I get up and I go in, and there’s some other disabled performers there. I think I might have been the first one up to do my piece, and you know—they sort of did this big

intro and made it a little like a game show. But then when people, like, got into their performance—

Ehrlich: It was real.

06-00:24:47 Walloch: —it was pretty real. And Howard Stern—well, interestingly enough, before the show, he came into the green room. He goes, “Hi, I’m Howard, nice to meet everyone. We’re here to make some provocative radio and television. And let’s have a good time.” So there was this sort of preface that you don’t see on the air. And maybe he doesn’t do that—who knows what he does, or how he is with people. But I found him amazingly—because I could see his eyes; he usually wears sunglasses, I guess. I found him, like, there was a softness, and so engaging, in a certain sense, and that floored me, because we have this image of who we think Howard Stern is. But I found him quite engaging and soft, in a certain way. I think that’s what the sunglasses are hiding—

Ehrlich: Well, that’s interesting.

06-00:25:47 Walloch: —in a sense. Because there’s something about his eyes. There’s something about—if you really look at him, he seems like a good guy. So he came in and met us briefly and then we went in and all did our pieces. And he really gave me a lot of time on the mic. Like, I just I made him laugh right away.

Ehrlich: What did you do, do you know?

06-00:26:17 Walloch: Mm-hm. I did the Fuck the Disabled piece. And I couldn’t say the F-word; they were very they were like, “You don’t understand. Howard Stern has this whole thing with the FCC, that if you say a dirty word, Howard Stern pays money. So please adjust it and please respect it.”

Ehrlich: Screw?

06-00:26:36 Walloch: I think there—well, Howard Stern has his own code of, like, how they talk. So if they want to say fuck, they say F. F this, F that. So I said, “F the disabled.” Because that’s the whole Howard Stern thing. So you had to kind of find their own language for the radio. And so—I made him laugh right off the bat. I went in there thinking, “Nothing here today is personal. He doesn’t know me, and we’re going to have a good time.” And we did. He gave me an incredible amount of time just on the mic, just doing my thing. They didn’t say anything really offensive directly, like—I think in my introduction, in the prerecorded introduction, it said, “Introducing Greg Walloch, the only man George Michael wouldn’t hit on in a public restroom,” because that was the story of that day. But that’s as bad as it got. So there was no, like, terrible stuff, and—

really interesting and then Robin, the co-host, said, “Oh, what you’re doing is so smart and—” off the air, “—so smart, and so different. And just go for it.” And Howard Stern said the same thing. Just, you know, “Pretty amazing, different angle.” And they were—

Ehrlich: Did they screen what you were going to do before you did it? Or did they not know?

06-00:28:11 Walloch: I don’t think they really knew. I don’t think I had to show them anything, which was surprising. But I think he—because there was a little bit of an interview part before the set piece that I did. We just tossed it back and forth in a really relaxed way; I think that’s why it worked well. And although, you know, I don’t keep in touch with him on any regular basis, I will always be grateful. I mean, he gave me this huge public forum to do my work and that it was set under the umbrella of this idea of Handicap Star Search didn’t really bother me. And it was attributed to me, my quote that “I want to kick Christopher Reeve’s ass.” He said it motivated him to get this idea of disabled people battling it out for, what—and so he was just motivated by the comment.

Ehrlich: And did he choose the word “handicap” because it’s provocative now?

06-00:29:15 Walloch: Handicap Star Search?

Ehrlich: Versus “disability.”

06-00:29:18 Walloch: Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

Ehrlich: Because that’s sort of his thing.

06-00:29:21 Walloch: I think underneath it all, a good guy. I don’t always love what he does with women and all that. But it’s all part of the shtick, I think. And I think underneath, kind of a champion for freedom, for free speech, in whatever form it may take, wherever it’s at. It’s definitely not high art, you know? But it definitely has its place. And interesting what’s happening with him currently, you know, kind of being run out of the media for being critical of George Bush. I mean, they say it’s other reasons, but it was pretty interesting how his show was instantly yanked the moment he openly criticized the president, so—. But, you know, a great experience for me, and really got me a certain amount of attention in a certain kind of way.

Ehrlich: So should we—though you say it wasn’t huge for you, time to talk about the documentary?

06-00:30:29 Walloch: Oh, and it was huge, too. You know what I mean? Like—

Ehrlich: But you were talking more about in terms of creatively for you, it wasn’t the crystallizing moment.

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: Like the Moth was.

06-00:30:40 Walloch: Right, like the Moth was. In tandem. They were kind of running in tandem. And so, yeah, I got approached by a director that I didn’t really know, who’d just come to see a show, who said, “Have you ever thought about making a film of this work?” I hadn’t really thought about that. That wasn’t my goal with the work. And I was getting a lot of attention at the time. Previously, I’d performed with, not with, but my show—at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, my show was in the same complex, same theater as Lily Tomlin’s show, [The] Search for[Signs of] Intelligent Life in the Universe. So they had a weekend, I guess, where it was gay themed. I think they had the Pet Shop Boys in, like, the gigantic arena part, and then Lily Tomlin in the main stage, and then I was sort of in the black box. I met Lily Tomlin there briefly. She then came to New York, and when she was in New York, came to see my show, when I did it at Westbeth Theater Center.

Also around that time, Amy Stiller, who’s a good friend of mine now, came to see my show, and eventually brought her parents, Ann Meara and Jerry Stiller, to see my show. So a lot of my work was kind of with all the stuff that had happened up to this point. Like, the Moth had happened, like, right before that, and so all my work was sort of gaining a strange kind of effervescence. You know, it was really bubbly; there was a lot of, like, stuff going on around the work, besides just the work. So this director came and saw the show and approached me about the idea of doing a film. I almost said no. My first gut instinct was to say no, because there was something—I just didn’t see it as a filmic piece of work. A lot of people around me were like, “Oh, you’re crazy. That’s crazy. Why would you even say no?” It wasn’t an easy decision. I weighed it out for a long time, and finally, I decided to do it.

Ehrlich: What was the negative?

06-00:33:33 Walloch: The negative. When I met the director, I just didn’t—he was from a different planet than me. You know what I mean? So I just didn’t feel like I was connecting with him. And I didn’t know him, so I thought it was a risk to get involved with a person you had no previous experience of. Although, I was convinced eventually that it was a big deal, that it was this leap into film, that it was this, like, starring role, and so we went ahead with it. Then it happened very quickly, at that point. They followed me around for about three months

in 2000, I think. Nothing was made up for the film. Everything that you see in—the documentary’s called Keeping it Real-slash-Fuck the Disabled, and there’s—

Ehrlich: A story there?

06-00:34:37 Walloch: —a story behind that. But—everything was already set. What you see in the film is what was already just happening in my life. So nothing was like, no special performances were booked or made for the film. During the creative process between us, I could—the film is split into three parts. There’s an in- concert element, which is just pretty much straight up my work, with some editing. And then there’s a documentary part, and then there’s a part where you hear me speaking on stage, and then it goes away to vignettes where the action is being acted out.

Ehrlich: Right.

06-00:35:22 Walloch: So there are three really distinct creative elements to the movie. I was uncomfortable during the interview process for the documentary part, because I could feel the director shaping a story, and I felt like I was being really led. I could really see where he was trying to be provocative, and kind of invent things, I felt, where they weren’t.

Ehrlich: What was it he was trying to show?

06-00:35:59 Walloch: For the sake of shaping a story, because we had a finite amount of time. I realize that as a creator, you kind of have to do that, but I have very definite opinions about what documentary is, and what that other thing is, where if you take real life people and you shape a story around them, that’s another art form. I’m not sure what that’s called, but—and we see it in its extreme form in reality television. I’m not saying that that’s what was going on here, but there was a certain element of like, “We didn’t get that shot.” And it’s real life, though, right? “So can we get it again? Can you do that again?” I was, you know, being the artist, “No. It’s real life. You missed it. I’m not doing it again.” And so it was two very different opinions.

Ehrlich: What is it you think he was aiming for?

06-00:37:00 Walloch: So I forgot your question. I felt, during the process, he was trying to make a sort of very kind of special film about a special person. And, “But isn’t it inspiring that this person with a disability gets up and does what he does?” Then the gay issue—he’s a heterosexual guy—and the gay issue, he was trying to say—he was trying to invent stuff with my parents, where I didn’t— where there’s—. I’ve given you the straight up story, here. Like, he was trying

to ask them very leading questions, in terms of, like, “Well, were you mad?” “Did you, you know, your gay son—” I mean, I could just feel all of this. And I understand as a creative person, he’s trying to make a piece of work, as well. But when it’s the raw content of my life, I felt somewhat [sounds of construction outside] manipulated.

Ehrlich: Hold on one sec. I think I’m going to close the window.

Walloch: Okay.

So there was this push and pull, even in the interview process, between the director and the artist, and the question then becomes, “Whose—?” and throughout. [background noise] Even in the finished project. I’m sorry, that’s my phone. We have lots of noise going on here today. So the question then becomes, in the end, “Whose project is it?” Like, is it the project of the artist that’s being filmed? And in a lot of ways, I felt it was, because it contained my live show. It contained all that work that I’d been doing for years. So in a way, I felt like it was my project. Was it the project of the director? And in a lot of ways, it was his project. So there were elements that we were definitely sharing. I was responsible for the stage work; he was responsible for the documentary piece. Then the vignettes in the film were another element altogether.

Ehrlich: Which were acted out.

06-00:39:13 Walloch: Which were acted out, were another element altogether, not something I was particularly comfortable with. I thought the people involved, like Stephen Baldwin and Ann Meara and Deborah Yates, all amazing and Paul Borghese, all amazing actors, who I’m so glad I got the opportunity to meet and work with, and that they care for me, and love me, and like my work, and wanted to be involved. That’s how they came to be involved. It wasn’t because we were making a movie. These people had all previously been fans of my work.

But I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of acted out vignettes, because the power of my work is that I tell a story. But I get, in a filmic way, it’s more interesting to have some more visual stuff going on. Now that people have seen the film and reacted to it, some people love those vignettes, and some people hate them. I have definite opinions about how well I think they came off or didn’t come off. I’m thrilled, in a sense, that I got to work with those folks. And I’m not sure they came off as strongly as they could have. But see, that was the struggle during this process.

Here are two creative people and they’re sort of vying for, you know, what they think is right, how they want to make this project. I think for this filmmaker, it was a surprise to him, because he’d made other documentaries, but they were, like, not about artists; they were sort of about other topics. So I

think it was a shock for him to encounter someone who had a will, in terms of how things should look or how things should go. It was just very, you know, kind of difficult, in a way, that struggle between the two things. And [sighs] so—and I still grapple with it. It was very hard for me, because there’s something so personal that I just didn’t like the direction, the way it was going. But in the end, all that said, I love that the stage footage is in there, because it got my work out there in this big way, where people got to see it. And the documentary section, when I was originally shown the rough cut of the film, I wanted to take my name off the project, which would essentially have rendered it useless. But—and not to be the bratty artist, but sometimes that’s the only—that’s the only thing you have, to put your foot down and say, “I’m out of here. This isn’t what I wanted.” When I was shown the rough cut, I thought it was offensive, because it was this very sort of after school special vibe to it. And—

Ehrlich: So it was that same old “poor disabled kid,” who’s—

06-00:42:45 Walloch: I felt. I felt. And also, lame in the way that it was portraying homosexuality, gayness in America. Like, I’m like—and I told the director. I’m like, “Listen, the gay people have left the building, because we’ve heard this—we’re way beyond the story that you’re trying to tell with my content. It’s not what happened to me. It’s not my life.” And I felt like, “Have you been listening to my work? Do you know what I’m trying to portray with disability? Because how can you tell this sort of saccharine story, and have my work over here, doing the opposite thing?” And there were actually conversations about what would play better to people. And—I just suddenly realized I was in another arena that I hadn’t formerly experienced before, because now we’re dealing with, like, when there’s a product in somebody’s hand, how is it going to play?

Ehrlich: So the whole commercial—?

06-00:44:02 Walloch: The commercial aspect. And not that that’s bad. I’ve had other really commercially successful things happen. But it offends me on some level. Because people are smart. And give them respect for knowing what’s going on. So we had this gigantic creative struggle, right when I saw the rough cut. I was like, “This is terrible. It’s sort of against a lot of things I believe in. And you can go ahead and use the content that you have, but I’m taking my name off the project.

Ehrlich: And what does that mean, to take your name off?

06-00:44:45 Walloch: Oh, that they’d have this film about this guy, but they couldn’t really call it— they couldn’t put Greg—

Ehrlich: Your name.

Walloch: They couldn’t—

Ehrlich: Literally.

06-00:44:54 Walloch: Yeah. They couldn’t put Greg Walloch on the box, and so what use is that? I know I was kind of really playing this unfair card, in a certain way. The way we contractually did things, I don’t own the finished product as a whole. Like, that’s his film. But I do own the underlying content of the show, and the live performance. So I didn’t give any of that away. He owns sort of that taped version of the show; but I kept the rights of the underlying content. So therefore, I had some ability or some power to withdraw.

Ehrlich: Because without your name, there really is nothing.

06-00:45:44 Walloch: Without my name, who is it going to be about? I mean you could yeah, so—

Ehrlich: It would be about an anonymous—

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —person with your same characteristics.

06-00:45:54 Walloch: Right. And I would be onscreen, but what could you really do? So I realized I was playing a bit of a dirty card, but I just didn’t know how to get things changed. When that all came about, that’s when things really started to get rough in the process, because he came to me with something he was, like, completely proud of. And as an artist, I can relate, because you’re suddenly unveiling what you’ve done. Not only did I not love it; I hated it. And so I understand what a huge blow that must’ve felt like. But he’s very tough, and very much like a guy, and didn’t, you know—really took it as an affront. I was so used to being in a theater world or a world of artists, where there’s some art happening, where I think I’ve had fiery confrontations with people I’ve collaborated with artistically. But usually, there’s this element of, as two artists, you’re coming together to slice things away, put things back together. There’s usually some effort made to make it work. Whereas in this case, there was, like, a brick wall. “This is my movie.” It was—

Ehrlich: This was not a collaboration.

06-00:47:26 Walloch: Yeah. Suddenly, this was no longer a collaboration. The feeling I got from him was, “I’m the director. This is my movie. I’ve got the footage I need. See ya later.” Like, “Your input is no longer needed.” I felt that was really unfair,

because it was my life. It was my content. And deeply personal. I realized I wasn’t in a situation that was about artistry, at this moment. So I used whatever I had to push and pull to get that rough cut changed, because I was like, “That just cannot be out in the world.” So after sort of a long fight about it, it was changed, and it’s the film that you see today.

Ehrlich: How do you feel about it now?

06-00:48:23 Walloch: Well, it’s interesting, because then after all that was brought up about, you know, my problems with it, I was really shut out of the process, and just didn’t—. They explained the name of the film. He said, “Oh, I think we should call it, Keeping it Real: The Adventures of Greg Walloch.” Because I say a line in my show, it’s a very throw-away line, “I’m Greg Walloch. I’m disabled, I’m gay, and I’m living in Harlem, because I like keeping it real,” and I say it in this really white, funny way, and then I go, “Word.” You know? But it’s this very, like, not even important piece of my work. But he goes, “Oh, I think we should call it Keeping it Real, because you are keeping it real, and it’s a documentary. We’re just, like, realness.” And I’m like, “That is the cheesiest fuckin’ title I’ve—” You know. And I’m like, “I hate it.” I’m like, “And you’re making this process harder and harder for me to get behind.” I was just really honest about my feelings. I’m like, “I’m ambivalent about the cut that we’ve ended up with.” Although we’d sort of agreed on that’s as good as it was going to get, and I could live with it. I could sort of live with the documentary element of it. The rest of it, I kind of like, pretty much. But it was my personal story that was being so twisted.

Ehrlich: So it’s the interviewing part.

06-00:49:46 Walloch: The interviewing part was upsetting to me. So we got it to a point and I want to make that clear. I like elements of the rest of the film.

Ehrlich: Right.

06-00:49:54 Walloch: But I felt like the interviewing part was very manipulated. And so we got to a place where we agreed. Then I said, “Ok, I’ll try to come back and get behind this again.” But when they said, “Oh, we’re going to call it Keeping it Real,” I’m like, “I hate it. You’re making it so hard for me to get behind.” I think it’s a thing of being an artist and wanting some control over all the elements, you know? But they called it that anyway, despite my protest. Then when they released it on video, a very cool sort of gay company, called Picture This! Entertainment, said, “Oh, we should call it, Fuck the Disabled. That’s, like, a totally great title.”

Ehrlich: They came up with that.

06-00:50:40 Walloch: Well, I had mentioned it as an alternative title in the beginning, before the director came up with, Keeping it Real. They said there were, like, a million reasons it wasn’t good for him. Then when I suggested that to them, they loved it. Because I felt like they got my sensibility. They got the—

Ehrlich: And who were they?

06-00:51:05 Walloch: Picture This! Entertainment were the people who ended up picking it up on video. They sort of got my sensibility and I felt like they watched it, and although I did have problems with it, I felt like they got a sense of my work, they got a sense of who I was. So I felt like their handling of it was more in the vein of what I would do.

Ehrlich: Mm-hm.

06-00:51:26 Walloch: And it’s proven to be right. It’s been more successful on DVD. And interestingly enough—

Ehrlich: How could they change the title?

06-00:51:38 Walloch: They just can. They can—well, because they’re optioning, they’re buying, they’re taking the rights to release the DVD. So it happens a lot with movies; they change the title for distribution on DVD. So—I forgot what I was just saying before that.

Ehrlich: You were just talking about having them—

06-00:52:06 Walloch: Oh, yeah, so I felt like they sort of understood a little bit more. What was interesting was when the reviews came out—because it did have a theatrical release in New York City—and when the reviews came out in, like, the New York Times, I was sweating, because I know you’re not supposed to care, but this was a movie with me all over it. My name actually in the title, in a movie that I felt uncomfortable with the process. I was worried that—and I’m given a producer credit, sort of in name only. Well, not in name only; I mean, I got all these people involved, like Stephen Baldwin and Jerry Stiller. I mean, it was through my connections that they were in there. So I was given a producer credit. But it also made me worry, “Oh, people are going to think this is my vision. And I was distressed. Even though I thought the film was a lot better at this point. All the review reflected what I had said to the director. Time Out New York, the first review of the film—I did a huge interview with them, where I’m on the—there’s, like, a celebrity profile in the magazine. It’s called The Hot Seat, or something like that. And in the movie section of the issue, it said—really short blurb—it said, the review was, “The director manages to turn Greg Walloch into a two-dimensional stereotype, in the face

of adversity. However, regardless, Greg Walloch proves that he deserves this kind of attention, more attention.” And then it says, “Please see Greg Walloch interview, page blah.” And then you turn, and there’s this huge interview.

Ehrlich: And you get to talk about how you feel?

06-00:54:05 Walloch: And I—and in some sense, it’s reflected—my mom raised me right. Or maybe not; but I feel like you try to be gracious. I wasn’t going to get in the press and rip this guy apart. It just didn’t feel appropriate to me at the time to have a project out there—. I was very honest. I didn’t lie. I would say things like, “I had discomfort with how this element, documentary element was portrayed.” Of course, that was interesting to the media, because we’re in this reality TV moment, and we certainly were then. So it was an interesting thing to talk about. But I will also say, I love that my stage work is out there, my stage work is in it. But I was very diplomatic. I never tore him down, and wouldn’t, don’t, have a reason to, really. But I was angry at the process. And it was very—God, it was so, like, baptism by fire. Not that I believe that the whole film industry is like that, because I’ve gone on to make more work. I’ve done a little television. But it was just really interesting to have gone through the experience. And then all the reviews, the New York Times, everything kind of—it was like two reviews. They would say, “Here’s the review of the film; here’s the review of Greg Walloch’s stage piece within the film” and they were very separate. That drove even more of a wedge between me and the director. And—

Ehrlich: Because you were being proven right.

06-00:55:48 Walloch: Because I was being proven right. And I’m going to be a bit righteous here; it felt really good.

Ehrlich: Yeah.

06-00:55:55 Walloch: It felt really good. I felt vindicated. I felt like, “Oh, God, people are seeing what I’m seeing.” I think, actually, it’s a pretty good film, as it stands. What I love about it is to this day, it continues to tour around to film festivals. And that’s, like, almost three years later. So that’s pretty incredible. I have to give the director some props for at least coming into my life and getting my work on film, however much of a struggle it was. I don’t want to say, like, “Oh, I was the only good stuff in it, and he was all the bad stuff,” because I don’t think that’s fair. This never would have gotten made, had I not been approached by him. So I have to be thankful, in that moment, for that. And then it continues to help my career and tour around. It was just a very unpleasant business and creative process.

Ehrlich: What about the financial piece? Did you make money?

06-00:57:02 Walloch: Um—your light’s blinking again, but—

Ehrlich: We’ve got a few minutes.

06-00:57:06 Walloch: Ok, cool. I was paid some money upfront, and I also have, you know, some stuff on the backend, although, since our relationship is strained, it’s hard to get that information. I mean, I got some money upfront, but it’s also hard to get the financial information out of someone who wasn’t pleased with the process either. But what I’m really glad about in that film is, I think that— people have said to me, at film festivals and stuff, “We see the two—” you know, they don’t even know what I went through—but they go, “It’s really interesting to me how in the film, there’s two voices. There’s, like, your voice, and then there’s this sort of—. The director’s not in it, but his creative voice.” I’m really relieved that people can see—. I’m so close to the process. It probably looks completely different. But I have that really sort of bad first cut in my mind. So I’m coming from this experience of, like, Oh, the first go at it was offensive. So—

Ehrlich: And it did shift since, from that first cut.

06-00:58:21 Walloch: And it did shift. And it did shift. So now I can say, “I like the film, and I think it’s pretty good.” But as it stands on its own, and as much as I can look at it that way. But the process was—the process was hard. Really hard.

Ehrlich: We should stop there.

06-00:58:42 Walloch: Ok.

Begin Audiofile 7

07-00:00:11 Ehrlich: So we’re back from a break, interview three, with Greg Walloch. So I was hoping you could talk some about your creative process. Specifically, is there a typical way that you get the spark for a performance piece?

07-00:07:33 Walloch: It’s so small, in that I really listen more than anything else. It goes back to my training with Denise Taylor, because we would be improvising, you know, and she would always say, “Silence and stillness is an option. Don’t forget that.” And that’s pretty powerful, because we always think we have to do something. We always think we have to do something, and silence and stillness is an option, just as much as speaking and movement or forward thrust. I listen an awful lot. I hear moments in the street. Just the moments, the

way people say something, and I store it away. I catalogue it away in my mind. I’m not too—if I physicalize a lot of little mouse notes on paper, I have good intentions of maybe doing something with them. But the way that my process works most powerfully for me, I just remember it and store it away. And then when it comes time to tell a story, I might take a piece of dialogue or a chunk of dialogue from ten years ago and suddenly put it in a present day story. Or suddenly all the threads of something connect. Very much like the way we’ve been kind of talking here. I mean, this isn’t performative, and this is more in depth, in a way, and probing me and questioning me in certain ways. But creatively, yeah. A turn of phrase will be funny to me, or a story will be funny to me, and I’ll remember them.

I also sometimes sit down and write architecturally, and build architecturally. But because I was raised with a fair amount of improvisation, that’s where it flows the most easily. So usually it looks something like this. I’ll get up on stage, like say tomorrow night, and I might have a little bit of a set piece in mind. But I’ll also give myself several minutes to sort of talk on a topic. But not just talk; like, there is some artistry involved in improvisation, so it’s performance; it’s not like therapy.

Ehrlich: Will you have a sense of what the topic is before you’re on stage?

07-00:03:21 Walloch: Sometimes it’s something that happened today. I told this story recently about how I was in the post office, and there were a bunch of people in line. There was a blind man who walked in, and he couldn’t see everyone, of course. So he walked directly up to the bullet proof partition and cut in line. Then I told this story about what happened. Of course, you know, I said, “I don’t know if that bullet proof partition is there to protect the postal worker from us, or us from the postal workers,” and I just have these observations. Funny or not funny. But this woman, who was next in line, says to the blind man, [laughs] “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” and comes up and physically shoves him out of the way of the window. I say to the woman, because sometimes my sensor gets completely worn away, in those moments where I’m surprised. And I say, “What? What are you doing? Are you such a bitch that you’re going to push a blind guy out of the way to get stamps?” and then on her way away from the window, she shoved me, as well, and I thought it was hysterical. I mean, it’s hysterical. It’s this very New York—like, people are out of their mind, you know? Over a line at the post office. And here’s this woman, [laughs] shoving a blind man and a guy on crutches. You know what I mean? Because she’s—and I go on to just tell a whole story about that. And it’s funny, and it gets a reaction from the audience, because it just happened. It’s fresh and it’s real.

Of course, in the telling of it here, it’s not performative. I mean, I do this whole thing, where I put it in a setting and I give those actions meaning. Also, people appreciate it because they live here and part of them knows that they

would shove that guy out of the way, too. You know? And—that’s why people relate to stories. We’re all the characters. We are really all the characters. So that’s what I’m looking for when I’m listening and watching people. It’s like, in that scenario, and it wasn’t the most brilliant story in this moment, because I’m not performing it, but in that scenario, we are the blind guy; we are me calling the woman out; and we are the woman. And the common thread there, the thing that people relate to, is the human being-ness, the really raw, edgy, messy human being-ness that is on display from all three parties, and that’s what I’m watching for. In these moments that seem rather mundane. I mean, maybe striking that you saw a woman shove a blind guy, and then you saw a woman walk over and shove a disabled guy, but I could choose to not even note it, really. So it’s taking these mundane moments and elevating them, and giving them meaning.

I think in my work, I rarely tell the audience how to feel, but I bring up a lot of questions. Or I just, “Listen to this. Listen to this,” and then I think the audience is left to pull their own conclusion. You know who I am. I have place in the story as an artist and you probably could get a good idea of what my ideas about life would be. But it’s not about me teaching you a lesson about disability. It’s not about me telling you anything about being a gay man. It’s about me going, “Hi, I’m a thinking, feeling human being, and I’m noticing all this other human stuff, and isn’t it interesting? And look at how we look at this, and look at how we look at that. And look at our perceptions.” I mean, observational, in some sense.

Ehrlich: What would, in your ideal world, an ideal audience reaction to your work be? What would people walk away with?

07-00:08:02 Walloch: Oh, exactly what they do walk away with.

Ehrlich: Which is?

07-00:08:07 Walloch: Whatever they walk away with. Because in an—here’s the secret. It is an ideal world. It’s just where we place the value, and I don’t mean to sound completely out there. But—I mean, I practice that in my life. My life is messier than that. But in the world of being in a conversation in performance, the ideal spot is where you’re telling the story, you’re in the moment, and the audience is in the moment, and the reaction they have is the prefect reaction, because it’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. So that’s why I don’t have that idea of bombing or doing great. Because all the other stuff that’s happening is so relevant. It’s what’s supposed to be going on. That’s the excitement about the live element, is because you don’t get that on television, you don’t get that in other mediums, necessarily. So in an ideal world, it’s already taking place. I don’t always feel like that, and I’m not always floating there. But that’s the honest answer.

Ehrlich: That you want.

07-00:09:31 Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: And to go back to the actual creating, with material like White Disabled Talent, where you’ve got a really clear story, material that you tell over and over again, where does writing fit in? How did a piece like Cake evolve? I mean—

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —was it just that spontaneous—well, forget that one, because we’ve talked about that a little bit, but another piece. Do you sit at a desk and write it out, or—?

07-00:10:07 Walloch: In the beginning, especially, it was performative first—I often wonder about that word; I think that’s been invented, and now I hear people say it. I’m not sure it’s actually real, performative. But anyway.

Ehrlich: But the story starts as your telling a story live with your voice—

07-00:10:26 Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: —not with you writing it.

07-00:10:28 Walloch: Yeah. The stories start in that very traditional way of storytelling. It may have these slightly alternative or avant-garde whistles and bells, simply because I’m a disabled gay guy. I’m a guy with a unique perspective. That’s the only thing that makes it “alternative.” But it’s very much in that tradition of storytelling and then it floats backwards and hits the page, through me, eventually. That was very much my process in the beginning, at Highways. And in LA. When I came to New York, and when I got into Living Room Live, especially, because we were doing stuff involving other people, too, I had to become more of a technician, and sit, and do it from the page to the stage. And I am a writer, but I feel like I’ve earned that label.

Ehrlich: So that comes second.

07-00:11:33 Walloch: It doesn’t come second now.

Ehrlich: No, I meant in the process.

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07-00:11:35 Walloch: It doesn’t come second now, necessarily. It did. And then it’s evolved. It’s, like, it used to go performance to page, and then it went from page to performance, and now it’s like a figure eight on its side. I mean, now it’s like, it’s all along the continuum. Both are in there. So now I feel very confidently, that I can say, “I’m a writer and performer.” But early on in my career, I would say, “Oh, I’m a performer,” and people would go, “Oh, but you just did an hour show that you wrote. You’re a writer,” and I didn’t quite feel comfortable in the skin of a writer. I didn’t feel like one yet. Even though I’d been up [laughs] doing all kinds of shows that I wrote, technically. But it wasn’t on the page. It was kind of all in my head.

Ehrlich: And is there, then, this back and forth, just to get it? So maybe you’ll perform it, write it; and then it shifts as you perform it, and—

07-00:12:39 Walloch: All the time.

Ehrlich: —then go back to the page, and—

Walloch: All the time.

Ehrlich: —it shifts back and forth?

07-00:112:44 Walloch: And the audiences influence it. I speak in the moment to what’s happening in the room, and something new is born. That’s what’s exciting. There’s a moment in White Disabled Talent where I pick a man out of the audience to dance with. I’m doing this whole sort of funny thing about how any of us could fall in love, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or woman—

Ehrlich: Right.

07-00:13:10 Walloch: —or straight or gay, and I pick a man out of the audience, and I ask him if he’ll dance with me. And it’s just this very brief moment. But every time, really—this miraculous thing happens, because you’ve pulled someone actually up into this playing space with you. And it’s real. That’s my favorite part of the show. Not because I get to dance with a guy. But it’s just real. It’s, like, the most real thing that could possibly happen. And challenging as an artist, because then there’s suddenly—there’s already an unknown quantity at work in my work, but then there’s suddenly an unknown quantity times the power of ten, you know? Or a hundred even, because you just don’t know. You just don’t know where that moment’s going to go. So—

Ehrlich: I think I already know the answer to this, but the role of discipline?

Walloch: Uh-huh.

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Ehrlich: Do you push yourself to produce something new, to sit in some creative space every day, to go to the computer and try to write, or to—?

Walloch: Uh-huh.

Ehrlich: Do you have any kind of routine like that, or—?

Walloch: Wow.

So you prefaced that with that you think you know the answer. I’m really curious to know what you think that is.

Ehrlich: Well, just partly since you talked about getting the—that it’s about listening, taking snippets from life—

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: —and then telling a story, my sense is that you don’t have a routine. But I could be wrong, which is why I’m asking you.

07-00:15:02 Walloch: Your sense is pretty good. It’s such a sort of amorphous, funny thing for me, because, well, because there are so many aspects. There’s not just the creative aspect, there’s the business aspect; there’s the part that gets up and returns all the emails; there’s the parts—

Ehrlich: Right.

07-00:15:20 Walloch: —that send out the media kit; there’s the parts that do interviews with magazines and newspapers; there’s the part that responds to fans who have written, or—there’s a whole business element.

Ehrlich: Right.

07-00:15:37 Walloch: There’s also the creative person, in every moment, that’s listening and watching. And even here in this process. It doesn’t mean our interaction will somehow end up in a show. It might. Or even, like, this totally subtle element might, that you might not even recall later. That happens to me often. I’m inspired by people. Like that cake story. My friend Karen, who I speak about in the story. It was inspired by moments from her life. That doesn’t necessarily mean she completely recognizes them herself, but—. So that’s the part of being a writer; you’re collecting all this stuff, and then it comes out later, and the person who may have inspired you, it’s long gone for them. Or it’s not even a moment they noticed. But the artist in me is always listening. The businessperson—. It’s such a polarity, I have to tell you. And it’s, like, all over my life. It’s, like, it’s fingerprints are all over my life. Because—

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Ehrlich: The polarity, you mean.

07-00:16:55 Walloch: Yeah, because through this process of gaining some commercial success, I guess, if you call it that, takes a good businessperson. And I’ve learned—the gift of doing this is it’s taught me more than I ever thought I would learn. I’ve learned how to be a good businessperson. I’ve learned how to be a better artist. I’ve learned how to be—you know, once again, Greg Walloch always will bring you home to the sentimental vibe—but I’ve learned how to be a better human being. So there’s part of me that’s very disciplined, in a certain sense. The business part that needs to return the call and do all that stuff. The artistic part, also kind of weirdly disciplined, but also floating up there free, because you can’t—I don’t think any really successful artist with heart in their work can rigidly tie that down and have it work. And anyone—you being a creative person yourself—anybody will tell you that that’s the truth, that you have to sort of set it free, and let it breathe on its own.

The key isn’t discipline, isn’t like that, “I’m going to wake up and sit and do my journal for two hours every day.” Not that that’s not valuable, but what I’m saying is it’s not some dogmatic discipline that gets you the result. It’s just trusting that your artistic voice is there. Always. And the moment you need to reach up and grab it out of the air, that it will be available to you. And I think where the pain comes in for artists, or I’ll just say for myself, is when we lose faith; when we lose faith in our artistic voice. Because it’s there as much as our business voice, and our neurotic voice, and our—all this other stuff that we would never deny that we have. There’s stuff in our life that is so present we’re even trying to get rid of it, we’re trying to even extract it, or go to therapy and talk about it, because it’s so ever present. And it’s weird that there’s somehow this belief that all that artistic stuff isn’t as present, and it’s more—it’s not as available. Because I don’t think that—I think that’s a myth. And I think that the pain comes from this idea that you’ve, you know, shot your best—well, [laughs] there’s that jocular thing again; I can’t say what I was going to say. That you that you that you’ve blown—

Ehrlich: Why can’t you say what you were going to say?

07-00:20:03 Walloch: —or, you know, you’ve shot your best load. There’s always that thing of, like, you’ve shot your best load and, like, that’s it. And what if I don’t come up with anything else? And why is that that? Why am I sitting down here today, and nothing is here? I think that’s illusion. I’m not saying that I’m up here floating in this great space, where everything always comes to me. I suffer just as much in the creative process, but the suffering comes from the idea that there’s separation. The suffering comes from the idea that you are outside of your creative process, or your creative process is outside of you. And that’s when it hurts, that’s when it’s not functioning. So for me personally, a very sort of dogmatic, like, I’m going to sit down and, like [snaps fingers] a

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disciplinarian, whip it out—for some people, that might really work. And I’m also open. I mean, my creative process changes all the time. Like, going back to the gigs that I accept. Hey, if it sounds fun and I’m game, I will definitely perform in a boxing ring. Or I also did a show once in a laundromat, you know? And then I’ve also done a show in, like, you know, museums around the city. Or I do a burlesque show. Currently, I’m part of a burlesque show, where I do comedy in between the dancers.

And so just as open as I am to putting myself in challenging, interesting, creative situations to perform in, I’m as equally willing to play with the way that I find my work. So I have had periods in my life where I’m going to sit down every day for three hours and write, until I have nothing left to write. And I have gained some interesting stuff from that. But there’s a quicker process for me. There’s a better process, that’s quicker, and, like, what I came up with was so much improvisation. It’s like, there’s so much value in sitting down to be an architect of creative work, and write it all out. But there’s also—it’s also there in so many other facets and forms, and so what’s working for me currently is to listen and to tell stories.

Ehrlich: [pause] Well, one more quick creative process question, which is just, where does the audience sort of hover in your psyche when you’re creating something new?

Walloch: Oh, yeah.

Ehrlich: I don’t mean when you’re on stage.

Walloch: Mm-hm, mm-hm.

Ehrlich: But when you are separate from them. Or do they?

07-00:23:17 Walloch: Umm. Every audience is so different that they’re actually—any idea of them in your head away from them, is an illusion, because you don’t know. You just don’t know. I’ve walked into so many rooms and had so many diverse people in each audience that you just have to meet them where they are.

Ehrlich: But I guess I’m wondering, in your own psyche, say you’re sitting at your desk, whatever, writing.

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: Are you aware of writing towards anyone? Do you have the judging voice sitting on your shoulder? Is it an audience cheering? Or none of that?

07-00:24:03 Walloch: I have a judging voice, but it’s more coming from me, about me. And exactly what I was saying. You don’t know the audience. You can think you have an

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idea of the audience, but it’s a complete illusion, and that’s what stepping on stage so many times has helped me come to terms with. It’s pretty useless to write towards an audience, because guaranteed, you will miss the mark. Guaranteed. Because your idea of them is false.

Ehrlich: And you do have the ability to tune that out?

07-00:24:38 Walloch: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. My harshest criticism, my harshest judgment comes from me and my own neuroses. It’s not to say—I mean, I love the audience, I respect the audience. The audience is the whole—you know, I’m bowing down to them, in the moment of performance. I’m opening my heart, in the moment of performance. But to sit at my desk and think of them, it’s like thinking of that lover that you haven’t even met yet. And I really see how useless that is because you don’t know them. You don’t even know them yet. So it’s not very useful to think of them, because you’re wrong. You’re wrong. The only way you know the audience is the moment you breathe and step in front of them, and you listen, and you feel. So sitting at my desk, in my creative process—I’m glad I’ve dispensed with that. I don’t know if I ever struggled with that, on some level. Because—I think it comes from all that training, all that training of, like, being in the moment, working in the moment. And you’re able to—yeah. Yeah, it’s like preparing for the wedding, and you haven’t even met the man. It seems odd to me. But I know that people—well, like, you can see things that have been written for an audience. And we know it. It smells really fishy. Like when we go to see a movie that we know there was, like, some meeting about—

Ehrlich: Target audience?

07-00:26:33 Walloch: —demographics. And that’s not to say that some of that stuff’s not entertaining. There’s lots of stuff on TV I find funny and humorous, and know that that’s all been worked out, on some level. But you know what? A lot of it fails. More of it fails than flourishes. And that’s telling. That’s telling. So that’s why there’s such an abundance of it, because—. It comes at you so fast and furious, it doesn’t matter, kind of, in a certain sense, because there’s another TV show behind it to replace the one that didn’t work. Live art is harder. It’s harder to turn out that quantity. So I think it’s a little bit more— it’s like baking a cake. It’s a little bit more measured, it’s a little bit more thought out, because you don’t have the luxury of having it be so disposable.

And it is a luxury, because in a way, that’s what Living Room Live [was], that sort of fast pace, where we’re writing it down, we’re throwing it in a drawer, and we’re never using it again, because the rule is we can’t repeat. So that was a luxury to have—it is a luxury, to have it be somewhat, like, consumptable and finished. But I think when you’re making art, when you’re making something that maybe strives to go a little bit deeper, you throw it around for

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the rest of your life. And—I’m not just talking about myself; you can see that in any artist who’s—visual art, anybody. They’re throwing around similar images, stories. They’re here to say something, and we should listen, because each thing is completely unique. And no matter where it is, even if it’s in mass media or whatever. But it’s just value and quality. It’s the quality we give stuff. The quality of our attention, and the quality that was put into it. And the value that we place on it, and the value that was put into it.

Ehrlich: I’m wondering, to sort of switch subjects some, I realize we’ve said very little, aside from Fuck the Disabled, we’ve said very little about film. Do you want to say some—?

07-00:29:05 Walloch: Sure. Sure. I’ve done a couple of short films. I did a—Burn Manhattan, that improv group that I studied with for a while, they made a film called Clean. And it was an improvised feature. So they—and it was before like, I think Mike Figgis did one, and it was before all of that. It was interesting. They would give us sort of a setting, but then what would take place would be improvised. I have a part in that movie, and I’m not quite sure what ever happened with that, but it was certainly fun to make.

And I made, after Fuck the Disabled, almost immediately following, I made another film called Steam Cloud Rising. It was set in 1979, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a week before the Three Mile Island disaster. It’s about these two guys who are in high school. One of them is, like, a popular jock, and the other one’s kind of a nerd, and in the face of this disaster, they find out they have feelings for each other. I play the best friend of the high school jock. And it’s interesting. The script was really raw and unformed. Somebody approached me to do it, and it had nothing to do with, like, me doing Greg Walloch shtick. I was totally playing this other character who, you know— portraying this guy in this movie. And it was interesting. It was very interesting to be on location, outside in the weather, three a.m., all day long, on Three Mile Island. But the great stuff about it, I’ve never been to Three Mile Island. And not that you’d want to go, necessarily. Not that it’s a destination spot. But again, suddenly put in a town with people I never would have encountered. And that’s what was really great about it.

The movie—I think when you’re making film, you have to enjoy the moment you’re making it. Because once it’s out, and once it goes somewhere else, to somebody else, to an editor, to whatever else, then you have to let it go and let it be exactly what it is. I had no problem with that with this film, because I was playing a part. I was making a contribution to someone else’s creative vision; whereas in the former film, it was being portrayed as my life, so I had more of a stake and an opinion in it. But with this film, yeah, you have a great time while you’re filming it, and then you hand all your raw element over, and then you hope that it’s made into something really great. On a workaday level, it’s so cheesy to hear actors complain about how hard stuff is because, please,

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everyone’s life is difficult in some aspect. But I had no idea what it was to be up at three a.m., out in the elements, and be out there for sixteen hours. And we had scenes, like, in the water, in the motor boat, like, wet and you know. It was interesting. I mean, I would do it again, and I would challenge myself in different ways again, but I’d have a better idea going in, what I was in for.

Ehrlich: What about—

Walloch: Go ahead.

Ehrlich: There was a movie that—hmm, I don’t have the title with me but that you’ve been working on, with the—

Walloch: Well, it’s—

Ehrlich: Bagdad Café—?

07-00:33:12 Walloch: It’s been off and on for—and this is interesting, just in terms of the movie business. There was this project that came up some time ago called—or at least the working title is, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

Ehrlich: Right.

07-00:33:25 Walloch: And it was written for Marianne Sagebrecht, the woman from Bagdad Café.

Ehrlich: Who’s also a friend of yours.

07-00:33:32 Walloch: Mm-hm, and she knows my work and knows me well, and there’s a part in the movie that she wants me to play. The project got rolling at one point, and they were speaking with Rutger Hauer to be in it. Then he wanted to change a lot of stuff, and so it was shelved again. Then it got rolling again at one point. I don’t know if they spoke with John Goodman, or were thinking about John Goodman, but then everybody sort of got into it again, and then it got shelved. And then Percy Adlon, who directed Bagdad Café and Rosalie Goes Shopping, and Sugarbaby, which is like the Marianne Sagebrecht trilogy that they did together, he was going to sign on to work on it, which was kind of a big deal, because they would have been reuniting. And they had been so successful with all these projects in the past. I think their relationship is an interesting one, as many creative collaborations are, as we’ve discussed. Then his son was going to direct it, I think. Now, currently, it’s on hold. So that’s been a fair amount of time. I’m, like, I’m here and I’m waiting, whenever we get it rolling. But the film world seems to be interesting because it’s a lot of start and stop and start and stop; but then once it’s going, it seems to happen quickly. So I’m sure it might never happen; but I absolutely love that she thought enough of me to ask me to be involved.

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Ehrlich: So is doing more film, is that a future direction for you, or something that you’re hoping to do more of?

07-00:35:25 Walloch: I hope so. I mean, I think I’m a really skilled performer. I think I’m learning how to be a good actor, and I think there is a difference between the two. But you know, somebody like Spalding Gray, very skilled performer, and also actor. But an interesting actor, kind of popped in and out of a few things, but continued to do what Spalding Gray did, you know? I identify with that, in some way. I feel like I’m in a certain tribe of people: John Leguizamo, Sandra Bernhardt, Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Ann Magnuson. You know, Nichols and May. All the, like, storytellers, people who—their instrument is, like, their voice. And singers, too. I mean, that’s why it was such a pleasure to meet and work with Patty Griffin in the Moth. So yeah, I would like to continue acting, but I feel what I am, first and foremost, is a performer and storyteller.

And it’s slightly different because—there is this assumption that because you’re good at one discipline, you’ll be good at all of them, and that’s not necessarily the case. But I mean, I’m getting more into publishing work. A lot of people have approached me about writing a book. Two pieces were published last year, maybe before, in John Killacky’s Queer Crips. You know, it’s great. It’s awesome that people are approaching me to do more and more things. The book’s going to be in the future a little bit because, I think you know, as a writer, you have to really take a slice of time out of your life to really—it’s a different kind of attention. I still feel like I’m really busy performing. And the Moth, actually, we talked about earlier, kept rolling forward, and it was made into a television show for Trio, the pop culture TV network, and that was great. So yet again, that cake story went many places, and—

Ehrlich: Is TV something that you’d like to do more of?

07-00:37:56 Walloch: I would love to do—

Ehrlich: I heard rumors you’d love to do a sitcom.

07-00:38:00 Walloch: A sitcom? I don’t—You know what I would really love? I don’t know. Did you hear a rumor about that? I don’t know. I don’t mean to be at all snotty about TV, but the reality element of television is a little unsettling to me. And it can totally be there, I’m just not really interested in watching it. But I would love to do TV, because there have been television shows that have been, like—. Every once in a while, a really amazing show will come along, like Twin Peaks or, you know, like The Moth. That was pretty interesting, to have people on TV just telling stories. Or Alive From Off Center. Remember that show, where it was just like an arts program? So there’s stuff on TV that, sure, I definitely find interesting.

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And maybe in another life, or maybe in this one—I’m obsessed with the food network. I love it. I keep it on all the time, because I feel like it’s watching integrity in action. Like, you start with raw ingredients; you say you’re going to make a pie, and you put them all together, and there’s nothing left over, and you have a pie. And, like, it’s like watching—I find it completely relaxing. It’s like watching integrity in action. It’s really watching the creative process in action. I would secretly love to do a cooking show. I would love it. I would love it. I don’t know if it fits into the Greg Walloch scheme, but—. If I think of alternative, I mean, and I don’t think it’s alternative. It so sings in my heart, in a certain sense. I’m sure down the road, there’ll be some fucked up version of a cooking show that I end up on. It always seems to happen. My fantasy about radio, and then I end up on the, you know—. It’s like all these threads come together. But I’d love to do more TV. I liked that The Moth got on television and people got to see it and—

Ehrlich: Can you speak a little bit about your feelings about nondisabled actors playing disabled characters—

Walloch: Sure.

Ehrlich: —being asked to play your own disability and then some, all of that, those issues?

07-00:40:29 Walloch: Sure. I went on an audition years back for a TV miniseries, which I don’t remember the name of. John Larroquette was supposed to be in it. He is a drunk driver and he runs this guy down on the road, [laughs] and disables him for life. Then the story was about how the disabled guy comes back and forgives him and, like, helps rehabilitate him and gets him to stop drinking. Or something to that effect. But I went into the audition, and the woman was like, [laughs] “It’s really great, but we need you to kind of, like, be—I don’t know, you’re not disabled enough.” But they were trying to be really PC and hire an actual real disabled person. But they’re kind of talking, and they’re going, “The way you’re dressed, and your hair, you know, your hair is combed, and you’re attractive and, you know, we need you to do something else.” And on a certain level—because, like, it illustrates it more if I just speak from my personal experience. On a certain level, I am an actor. Or that’s what I’m there to do today. So on a certain level, they give you a direction, and you just fill it; it doesn’t matter if you’re disabled or not. Like, they’re asking for “more disabled,” whatever that means. And [laughs] I kind of said, [background noise] “I need a little more direction. I want to know, like, what you mean.” And she goes, “Oh, you know, when you see some people and they’re like this,” and she illustrates a thing. She goes, “And we need your speech to be more like you know, he’s really been hurt in this accident.” And so as a person auditioning, I take a deep breath, and I muster up whatever it takes, then I push away my shame, [laughs] and I pull my arm up and I tilt my head over, and I say the lines, and I say them [changes his vocal quality] very, like,

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you know, this. And I’m, you know, I’m drooling a little, because I’m letting my face relax. When I did that, when some spit came down the front of my face and dripped off of my shirt onto my shoe, they lit up, you know? “We love it. That’s great.”

And there’s so many things going on there, because I feel like a complete fucking whore for doing that, on some level, and there’s something about it that feels gross. But it’s not so much in terms of disability, per se; but it’s in terms of, like, what they want, and you serve it up on demand. I mean, it’s like the actress, where they go, “That’s great. But can we see your tits?” You know what I mean? Or—it felt like that. So it wasn’t so much in terms of disability, per se, but it just felt like a slightly dirty thing. And—. [laughs] But I hit the mark. They were like, “Oh, we love it.” So closer to fulfilling what they needed, you know? But in the end, I didn’t get the part.

I’ve had other experiences where I’ve gone in to play the disabled guy, and I’m not disabled enough. Howard Stern even said—something about, you know, he goes, “You’re one of the—” [laughs] He goes, “You’re one of those handi-capable people,” and he’s like, “I don’t really like them. I like my crippled people really crippled.” And it’s funny, of course, because he’s being Howard Stern, you know? He goes, “I like my crippled people really messed up,” and he’s doing it for the sake of a joke. And that is kind of funny. You know, it fits in with his genre of stuff.

07-00:44:44 Or I was also in a gay magazine doing publicity for the Keeping it Real film and, you know, I was dressed up in Diesel clothes, and my hair was—and I love that, it’s fun. It’s, like, it’s all part of it. It doesn’t offend me to do that at all, because that’s all part of making the art. Like, it’s not just what I’m doing on stage. Everything, from the way the postcard or the poster for the show, to the publicity—. It’s super fun for me to get dressed up and do all that stuff. And I had, like, black nail polish on. It’s really fun, really interesting, and part of the art. If the people will collaborate with you in that moment, you can make something really great. So these pictures were in this sort of popular gay magazine, and somebody wrote this letter in that was really critical, that said, “Oh, here’s this magazine, thinking it’s being diverse, thinking it’s showing the diversity of the gay community by featuring Greg Walloch. However—” They said something like, “He’s the Dawson’s Creek version of disability.” The Dawson’s Creek version of disability. So even from the disabled community—and that one guy doesn’t speak for everyone—but even from that faction, I’ve gotten this idea of the, like, tarted up version of disability. But I think that’s going to happen to you any time you sort of move forward in your career. Like, you know, you’re a writer, and you suddenly get your book published, and then everybody else who secretly wants to write a book is going to be, like, “Oh, well—” [laughs] You know. Whatever. “They sold out, because they’re in every Barnes & Noble.” But that’s the deal, in a certain way. And, you know, it was a sort of fashion layout. Underneath, they said,

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you know, “Greg Walloch is wearing blah-blah-blah.” [laughs] But that was the purpose of the piece. And so—and I wasn’t not me. I was me, in some sense.

But it was really weird to be, like, yeah, not disabled enough. And coming from all sides. Coming from the industry, coming from other disabled people. Coming from all sides. And also in the gay community a little bit, too. Like, a gay person should be representing this. I really feel strongly that—I’m glad to be a part of those communities, and I identify with them, and I find strength in them, but it’s dangerous to think that someone else should speak for you, because it’s likely they might not express how you feel. So I encourage [laughs] everyone to write their own story. Tell your own story. It’s not that I don’t want to speak for a community or be a representative of one, and I’m quite honored that people have put me in that spot. But it’s also pretty tricky, because I’m me, and I’m speaking from my heart. And if that doesn’t match your agenda, so be it.

Ehrlich: And that came up yesterday, when you talked about being at the disability—

Walloch: Conference.

Ehrlich: —conference, and you’re too gay.

Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: And you had also spoken to me about, you know, doing these straight ahead bars, getting some degree of success, and then sort of being claimed by the gay community as “the gay voice,” and being claimed by the disability community—

07-00:48:47 Walloch: In a moment.

Ehrlich: In a moment.

07-00:48:49 Walloch: In a moment in time, because that’s how it works. It’s very interesting. It’s like—yeah, because I feel like I had really started out, you know, in a very artsy way, like, in the performance scene in LA and that sticks with me. That’s my foundation, you know? That very lovely idea of community. And I try to create community again and again and again and again. It’s what it’s all about for me. More than any other identity issue. Community. I want everyone—yeah, as syrupy as that is. You know? We’re all in the same boat together. But as I moved forward, and in New York, I was definitely in these very sort of mainstream situations, and I really worked to get where I am. And along the way, as I got more attention, the gay community, whoever they are [laughs] would come and go, [knocks] “Hi, Greg Walloch. We would love to have you on our pride show,” and then suddenly, I was doing a lot of pride

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shows, which is great, because now I’m feeling more accepted by my own community. Or by one of them, you know? So I happily thrilled to be asked. You know, several years into it. And then, as I’m sort of getting more popularity, especially with the film, the Fuck the Disabled film, then someone will say, [knocks] “Hi. We’re the disabled people and we would love to have you at our event.” I understand how that works. I understand the complete logic behind all that. But it’s so opposite from what people think. I wasn’t sort of loved, and lifted up, and embraced by the communities that you would assume that I was. It’s almost like it happened backwards. And I’m glad to be a part. I’m glad to be involved. But yeah, when I’m interviewed or whatever and people say, “What is the gay audience like?” or, “What do disabled people think about—?” I can only speak from my own experience. Because—

07-00:51:26 I’m not a person who has been long active and long welcomed in those communities. It feels recent. I’ve been part of them, because I’m gay and disabled, and I can speak from my perspective. But I was not, like, in the trenches of those communities, working my way out into the mainstream. It’s almost like it went the other way. That’s a really interesting experience. So I could tell you more about comedy clubs in New York and that culture, or I could tell you more about art history, or performance art in Southern California, than I could really tell you about the disability movement.

Ehrlich: The rights movement.

07-00:52:19 Walloch: And it’s new to me. So therefore—. And the gay thing is different, because it’s bigger, it’s more present and more accessible on some level, whether my involvement directly in it as a person, not a representative, but as a, you know—

Ehrlich: Man.

07-00:52:40 Walloch: —as a man, it’s a little more accessible. But that also there lies some discomfort about talking about the disability movement, because who am I in it? Like, where has my place been? People have said—it’s flattering—people have said—I should just go ahead and tell the story. When John Killacky first asked me to include my pieces in Queer Crips, I said no. And—

Ehrlich: I’m laughing, because that was my next question.

Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: You always seem to—

Walloch: [Over Ehrlich] See, I—[laughs]

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Ehrlich: —intuit what’s about to come next.

07-00:53:24 Walloch: You’ve probably done a lot of interviewing, or I don’t know. But I said no. I said no, and he was shocked. We’re friends. I really have so much love for him and his partner. But just to get—and I hope he sees this, just to give him some setting for why I said no. I had just come off of the experience of shooting Keeping it Real-slash-Fuck the Disabled. I felt completely burned and out of control of my own work, and I sort of did this very, like, slamming the door. I’m like, “No one is getting any of my work. I need to reel it all back in.” Even the good stuff, even The Moth and all the TV and the whatever. I just felt like all the interviews and stuff—and we talked about that a little bit off the tape—how interviews will slightly be altered to serve a certain purpose. So I just felt a little like—I didn’t have any control, and I felt used slightly by the Fuck the Disabled experience. Ironic, that it’s that title, because, yeah, I felt a little fucked. There were elements that were great. Thus is the thing about life. Pleasure and pain, and pleasure and pain.

But, yeah, I said to John Killacky, “No, no. It’s just—” and he was like, “Well, why? What can—? You know, I don’t understand.” I tried to say clearly at the time, “It’s just the wrong moment to ask. Like, I just can’t do it.” And he said, “Oh, Greg, you don’t understand. There is this whole sort of disability movement happening right now in this very specific way, and you’re at the forefront. You don’t understand the progress that you’ve made, and that you’re in this film with these, like, celebrities. You’ve done this stuff. You’re at the forefront of this movement. You know, we want to put you in the front of the book. You’re, like, a featured part of this book.” And although some of that may or may not be true, and some of that may have been said to grease the wheels a little bit, I was even uncomfortable with that. I was like, “What? I’m at the forefront of this movement? Like, when was that happening?” And it might have been happening elsewhere, but it’s not like—I wasn’t on a float at the front of the parade. You know? And in fact, no one was really to be found.

And that’s that sort of lonely thing of the artist. You know, there’s this whole thing of community, and this whole thing of communing with your audience and being with other artists, that we’ve spoken at length about. There’s also this side of complete solitude. I’m in my apartment here in West Harlem in 2004, removed, kind of, from Manhattan, anyway. I mean, and so sure, I’ve been putting these things out there, and sure, they have an effect. I mean, I know, because people write me and they say they’ve seen it. Or they say they’ve heard it. Or they stop me in the street. So I know people see it. But there’s this whole idea, also, or this whole place where I sit, that feels alone. And I don’t mean lonely in this, like, sad way. But really alone. Or when I go out on the road. I go do the show in front of a thousand people, and I go back to the hotel room by myself. You understand why people do every drug in the world, and you understand why people, like, have a guy or a girl in every

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town. Not that I do those things, of course. But you understand it, because there’s this huge rush of love and community and connecting, and then there’s this place where you sit alone. And each are equally valuable. But the painfulness is the striking distance between them. And—.

07-00:58:23 And all of this whole interview, all of this said, as I speak it myself, that’s why it’s so jarring when someone says, “So tell me about Greg Walloch, the disabled gay artist,” because there’s so much more here than that. It’s not me trying to shirk my identity or go here or there. It’s the whole human being— the businessman, the performer, the person who does all these things—and so shocking to always be brought back to that. And my hope is that one day, people will go and see a show, and it’s already happened, and not say, “Oh, I just saw this gay, disabled guy who’s really great.” They’re now starting to say, “Oh, I went to see a Greg Walloch show,” and that makes me really happy.

Ehrlich: I think that that’s it.

07-00:59:26 Walloch: Thanks.

Ehrlich: Thanks.

Begin Audiofile 8

Ehrlich: So this is tape eight.

08-00:00:07 Walloch: There have been eight tapes?

Ehrlich: Yeah.

Walloch: Wow!

Ehrlich: Greg and I were just talking about how, in some ways, his performance—

08-00:00:16 Walloch: My improvisation kicked in, because I realized that the tape was running out, so I wanted—. I felt this rush to suddenly, like, “Oh, God, this is going to be kept forever! What do I want to say?”

Ehrlich: And sort of as an antidote to that, we decided to—we are wrapping up—

08-00:00:37 Walloch: Yeah, yeah.

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Ehrlich: —but that we didn’t have to gallop towards the finish line, and realized there were a few loose ends we still—

Walloch: Yeah.

Ehrlich: —wanted to talk about.

08-00:00:45 Walloch: But it was my, you know, desire to stick a button on it. You know? But it’s funny.

Ehrlich: Yeah.

08-00:00:54 Walloch: And meaningful and true and all that.

Ehrlich: Right. No, not to discount it in anyway.

Walloch: Yeah. No.

Ehrlich: But both of us sort of—

Walloch: [laughs] “Oh, my God! It’s finishing! I better say the great thing right now.”

Ehrlich: I realized one thing that I wanted to follow up on, which we talked about, probably a year ago. Just a little bit about the professionalism issue, meaning the business end.

Walloch: Mm-hm.

Ehrlich: I remember you talking about how to manage that. The issue of being asked to give your time away for free. I’ve heard other performers, specifically performers with disabilities, who feel like they’ve been expected to perform at every benefit and—

08-00:01:48 Walloch: Right.

Ehrlich: You spoke to that some, and I’m hoping you can say a little bit.

08-00:01:51 Walloch: Absolutely. Well, in the case of the Queer Crips book, I did end up consenting to putting the material in, once all I needed was, like, a week, really, to rest. But in my mind at that moment, I was flipping out. But any—and you know, we’re friends. Me and John Killacky are friends. But it is a business transaction. Even though it’s a creative thing and a communal thing, it is a business transaction, on some level. And I’ve really learned, because I’ve had several day jobs throughout this whole story, that we didn’t really get into. I didn’t just live on disability. I mean, I’ve had all kinds of retail craziness. But

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for the last maybe four years, I’ve been living off of the money I make doing performance and that is an issue of self esteem. Not just for disabled people, for any artist, anyone in any profession. Any freelancer, because when you go in and get a nine-to-fiver, you agree on a price. It’s an issue of self esteem, because everyone goes, “How do I make more money?” I’m not insinuating in any way that I’m wealthy, but the door flew open when I [laughs] realized and, I’m comfortable, when I realized, the way you make more money is you ask for more money. You ask for what you’re worth. And you have standards. And I continue to learn it. It’s a really hard lesson. It’s a hard lesson for any artist to sidle up and say, “This is what I need.” because there are so many issues at work. I mean, I know we’re wrapping up, but that’s a whole other issue. But—

08-00:03:53 There is this assumption that you’ll do things for nothing and it’s motivated by—and sometimes I do. I do tons of things for, no, not nothing, but for no financial compensation, because performing in a laundromat is fun, or performing at a boxing ring is fun. I didn’t get paid for those, but that led to radio appearances and a television show, eventually. And not even that I’m looking out for that, but it’s just like, keep your heart open. Ask for what you think you need. There’s this assumption sometimes, because you’re a performer, you must be so desperate to do it. Like, you love to do it so much that you’d do it for nothing. In part, that’s true. When I get paid money, they’re not paying me for the performance. I love it, and I would do it for free. They’re paying me to get my ass out of my house and fly to the United Kingdom. That’s what they’re paying me for. They’re paying me to do everything around the performance. They’re paying me to return all those emails. And they’re paying me for future work, too. But would I do it for free, what I’m doing in the moment? Absolutely. But there is this assumption you’re so hungry to do what you do, “Just do it for us. Like, sing that song you sing.” You know? Not that I sing, but—. When people go, “Oh, just, you know, do whatever you do for us, right now, because we—”

Ehrlich: Yeah, that’s a good idea.

08-00:05:35 Walloch: You know? [laughs] I’m not going to do it. But you know what I mean?

Ehrlich: Yes.

08-00:04:39 Walloch: It’s sort of—it makes me a little crazy. And it is a thing of, like, self esteem. Like, you just don’t whore it all around. Or maybe you do. You feel it out. You feel the moment and whatever brings you some joy. But it’s interesting, especially like from benefits, the assumption, and I’ve done many benefits for free, but the assumption because it’s a benefit, you’re supposed to somehow be behind it all. But the thing is, you’ve rented the tables, you’ve paid the caterer, you’ve rented the hall, you know, you’re paying for all the food, the

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people are paying five-hundred dollars a plate. Yet, you want the performer, the so-called featured part of the evening, that people are looking forward to, that person doesn’t deserve any money. And that makes me insane. Like, what’s that about? You know, I [laughs] I went to a benefit, and I do have sort of like, benefit prices, if we’re going to just get down to the brass tacks of what business is about. I have prices where I go to perform just normally, and then I have, like, a benefit price, where I’m flexible. The benefit price is not a lot. But I went to a benefit recently and they get up at the end of the night, and they’re like, “Tonight, we’ve raised over a hundred-thousand dollars this evening for,” blah-blah-blah. I’m not going to say—

Ehrlich: For a cause.

08-00:07:19 Walloch: Yeah, for a cause. And I thought, “A hundred-thousand dollars, and nobody really, like—. You know, nobody could give me any more over the price that I asked for?” It doesn’t mean that I’m not down for the cause, and that I’m not writing my own fifty dollar check. But do me the respect of paying me. Paying for the entertainment. I mean, I suppose you could go into issues of, like, “Well, do you think you’re less respected because you’re gay or disabled?” or whatever, but that doesn’t even come into it. It’s a thing of— yeah, knowing that what you do has value. And asking for it. Unashamedly. It’s really hard, because in this case, I’m the one doing the asking, most of the time. For film and TV stuff, and kind of for literary stuff, some professionals have sort of come into the picture. But for live stuff, I’ve done the best job. So if I’ve ever had managers or whatever, I’ve always ended up parting ways with them, because no one is more invested than me. And I’m doing the best job, currently.

Yeah, the doors have really swung open in the financial arena in the last maybe four years, enough so that I support myself and have some [savings]. I mean, it’s incredible to be an artist in New York and have some savings. Like, it hasn’t happened—I mean, I started when I was sixteen, you know, and to be really frank, since I’ve lived out on my own, been in debt the whole time. You come to New York, and anyone, any artist who’s lived in New York understands that place. Just in the last four years, the fact that I have some health insurance and that I can go grocery shopping every week, and that I actually have money saved, money in the bank, is a really satisfying feeling.

It’s learning to have self esteem and not apologize, not feel shameful. I mean, it’s more psychology. It’s more like therapy stuff. It goes back to, whoever you are, having all these feelings about money and what money means. Is it good, and is it bad? But you know, you need to pay your Con Edison bill. So the people who are asking you to go do your work, they must value it, or they wouldn’t have taken the time to contact you. So—

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08-00:10:12 Walloch: I’ve often found, more often than not, now that I’m asking, my asking price has gotten higher. The film has helped that, and the TV has helped that, and all that stuff, because that makes it extra shiny to people. I’m asking for almost three times the amount that I was asking for four years ago, and people pay it happily. Had you asked me—and that has a little bit to do with my career trajectory. But also, not. I think I could have, four years ago, asked for that, and people would give it. I’ve learned how to be a negotiator. I’m a very trusting soul, and I used to think, when someone would come to me and go, “Greg, we have this much money to give you,” I didn’t get that they’re not being particularly honest about their situation. I used be just like, “Oh, they only have this? That must be what they have.” But I’ve found that if you delve a little deeper, they sometimes have five times the amount they say that they have, and it’s something called negotiation.

I’m thankful for the tough experiences that I’ve had along the way, because it’s made me understand how to be an artist and how to be in the business world, and I never really wanted to learn that part. The sixteen-year-old boy who was up on stage doing the art never thought he’d be the negotiator. And even so, I have some trepidation talking about it here, because I’m not naming prices; I’m not naming names, because I think, in some way, I have some judgment that it’s crass or whatever. But it’s so tied up, it’s so tied up in self esteem, the business element. Especially for artists. It’s this whole push and pull of respecting yourself, respecting your work. And people will tell you no, and I’ve walked away from stuff. People have offered me this thing, and they go, “This is what we have,” and I say, “This is my minimum,” and if we don’t come to a place where we agree, I’ve not done that engagement and am better for it, in most cases. Because you do take that trip to the airport, and that trip across the country, and you go, “Yeah, this is worth something.” Like, you know, so I guess I’m saying sort of the same thing over and over, but—

Ehrlich: Well, I think it’s important.

So is there anything that we haven’t talked about that feels important to you? Or can we have a little—

08-00:13:12 Walloch: I think I’m pretty good.

Having this experience has made me so grateful for the other artists in my life. Getting to look at my own work, but also, like, realizing that there is community. I name all these people who I love, who have been there along the way, who have helped me so much and not just in terms of moving my career forward but being there in a lovely way in my life. So if anything, this project has made me grateful to see that there is community. In those moments when I am feeling, like, isolated. So—

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Ehrlich: Can you show us a little bit of your—

08-00:14:01 Walloch: Sure.

Ehrlich: —surroundings?

08-00:14:03 Walloch: Sure, absolutely.

Ehrlich: Give me one sec here. [background noise while Ehrlich adjusts camera] Okay. This is Greg’s room and Greg. [laughter]

08-00:14:22 Walloch: I recently moved my furniture around, [laughs] so I don’t normally have pictures of myself and my own work right above my bed. My bed used to be over there. [laughs] But I just haven’t rearranged everything. So narcissistic. As if I would have pictures of my work hanging above where I sleep. But yeah, it used to be all shifted around. But anyway, I had all this stuff catalogued and put away, and I decided that I was going to put a few key elements of my past and my work up on the wall, because in those times when I’m feeling sort of weirdly isolated, it’s good to actually remind myself that there is a past, that there is a history, because I spend so much time, like, pushing forward, that I think I’m not doing anything, that I’m not getting anything done. But—

Ehrlich: So what’s there? [referring to materials on wall]

08-00:15:21 Walloch: Umm, let’s see. This is the program and tickets from the Australian performance of White Disabled Talent from 1994 that’s in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. So amazing. I mean, so fun, and brings back so many good memories. I met Kylie Minogue there, the singer, before she was super famous Kylie Minogue now, and [laughs] I didn’t know who she was, and she comes up and she’s like, “I loved your show. I’m a performer, too.” I was like, “Oh, that’s great,” and then the people in Australia, who love her, were like, “Oh, you don’t understand, she, like, sells out Wembley Stadium. She’s like Madonna, the Australian Madonna.” And [laughs] I was just sort of chit- chatting, like, “Oh, great, what do you do?”

This was a benefit for Dixon Place. They did a reading of Some Like It Hot, and I played the bellhop. We had this gag in the show, where I came out saddled with luggage. I was carrying, like, twenty suitcases. Then the characters would run by me and just heave their bags at me, and then I would grapple to catch them. Kevin Malony, the director, thought that that would be really funny and I did, too. But some of the audience was just completely offended that—I mean, even though I’m in on it. I mean, I’m performing the gag. They were like, “Oh, that’s just terrible,” because people would run by,

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and I’d be on the crutches, and they’d run by and heave their bags at me and go on with their business. But it got really fun reactions. A lot of great people were in that, like the Five Lesbian Brothers, and Holly Hughes, and Craig Lucas, and you know, Everett Quinton, and Julia Wonder. Really, really amazing, fun artists. It benefited Dixon Place, which I’ve done several for Dixon Place, and all for nothing, because I owe them so much, speaking of that.

This is a program from Highways Performance Space. It’s really old. I wish there was a date on it somewhere, but it was a show called Boys Are Us, and it featured a lot of artists at the time. Douglas Sadownick, Tim Miller’s boyfriend at the time, and a brilliant writer himself, you know?

08-00:17:56 Walloch: This is the playbill from the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center; Lily Tomlin’s show, my show, picture of us [laughs] together. Couple of postcards from shows I did. I’m not sure from when or where. And then here, just a photocopy of a picture someone took for something. [laughs] I don’t know, P.S. 122, I think. So that’s that. Just to remind me that I actually I have done things, because sometimes I just completely forget and get caught up in the moment and thinking I’m not accomplishing anything.

And then over here. I guess this is interesting to show you. [referring to bulletin board of photos]

Ehrlich: Yeah. We’ll see if I can—

08-00:18:43 Walloch: Let’s see. Who’s in here?

Ehrlich: I think I need to come closer to you.

Walloch: You need to come closer? Okay.

Ehrlich: Yeah. Yeah.

08-00:18:52 Walloch: This is just a picture. I don’t know if there’s, like, a glare on this.

Ehrlich: It’s not. Let’s see how close—

08-00:18:58 Walloch: This is just a picture of my mom and her new husband.

Ehrlich: Mm-hm.

Walloch: This is a picture of two guys in Australia, when I was doing the Mardi Gras. This guy, his name’s Corby Beard, and here he is in drag, as well. He was meant to be my chaperone. Or, you know, not that I needed a chaperone, but

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he was meant to sort of be the person looking out for the talent [laughs] while I was there, and it was kind of the other way around. He was having a lot of fun [laughs] in those days, and so—. We won’t go into it, but it was kind of funny. Here is a picture of my father and me.

Ehrlich: How old are you there?

08-00:19:39 Walloch: That wasn’t that long ago. I’d say ’99, if I had to guess. The dates are all [laughs] completely—

Ehrlich: It’s alright.

08-00:19:49 Walloch: The dates are all completely wrong, so whatever. This is me in Los Angeles, really young, and this is Terri Nunn, the lead singer of the band Berlin. I knew them when I was in Southern California, and I was a young guy. I don’t even know how old I was. Some friends on Halloween. This person here, who’s the Invisible Man—

Ehrlich: Which one is that?

08-00:20:13 Walloch: This one. This person here, he’s the Invisible Man. His name’s Larry Maxwell, and he died of leukemia, which was really sad. He was kind of a mentor to me, and a brilliant actor. He was in the Todd Haynes film, Poison. Just amazing. You know? Just a great guy. And I really I miss him a lot. Me and my best friend, when we were kids. And then me and my best friend’s little brother, when we were kids. My mom and dad in the seventies, down here. It’s a weird array of—I just sort of stuck it all in there. Me in the eighties, with the sort of Duran Duran pompadour, bleached blonde haircut, [laughs] and the skinny tie.

That was actually for a performance, though. I didn’t really walk around looking quite that way. I did a performance piece with Barbara T. Smith on the LA River, and I played sort of this new age-y—. The piece was, they walked everyone along the LA River, and you’d stop at different places and different things would be happening, and I played this sort of new age-y shyster. Like, it was, like, this new age thing, but it was also sending up the idea of how the new age can be like a market and like, sort of shyster-y. So— and it was fun, because it was kind of the new age-y thing to be, like, doing an outdoor performance on the LA River. So I sort of wanted to send it up, at the same time as participate in it and give the sort of darker side or the underside. Just to be interesting, I guess.

What else can I show you?

Ehrlich: If that’s it, that’s cool.

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08-00:22:12 Walloch: That’s it. There’s a door over there, just plastered with pictures of people I admire, and people in my family, people I know.

Ehrlich: There are your canes.

Walloch: Canes, over there. I usually don’t use them—

Ehrlich: in the house.

08-00:22:25 Walloch: —in the house. And I can actually stand, you know, and walk around. But—I don’t know, it’s interesting. I don’t usually use them in the house, so—I’m just kind of doing my own thing and—.

Here’s my room, kind of white and Harlem and—[laughs]

Ehrlich: This is your computer.

08-00:22:47 Walloch: Computer, with the jacket slung over it, and the slightly messy desk.

Ehrlich: With a bunch of playbills and stuff above it, huh?

Walloch: Umm—?

Ehrlich: Tickets.

08-00:23:00 Walloch: Some tickets, some concert tickets and stuff on my bulletin board.

Ehrlich: Hey, I just realized that you had said that you wanted to say something about Spalding Gray, and we didn’t.

08-00:23:15 Walloch: Oh.

Ehrlich: That you knew him and he was important to you.

08-00:23:20 Walloch: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn’t know him really, really well, but I’d run into him performing here in New York, performing sort of in the downtown scene. [cat meows] There’s my cat. Hello. [laughs] Frightened by the camera. No, he’s getting some camera time.

Ehrlich: {inaudible}

08-00:23:45 Walloch: [laughs] But yeah, I knew Spalding Gray from the sort of downtown performance scene but not particularly well. I went to see his show, Life

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Interrupted, which was a work in progress, at P.S. 122, and you could just tell that he was really sad, you know? That he wasn’t quite himself. And during the performance, he had this odd moment where he shuffled the papers around, and he said, “I don’t feel like the audience can see me.” In response, the person in the booth turned up the lights, you know? But I don’t think that’s what he meant. I think he meant, “I’m reading my work, I’m doing my work, and I don’t feel like people can see me.” But instead, they turned the lights up brighter. The already bright lights.

And—he talked about having been in a car accident in Ireland, in the show, and how hard it was to sort of re-learn how to walk. I don’t know if a lot of people knew a lot about Spalding Gray. And the show was just really sad, because I didn’t feel like I watching an artist do a piece; I felt like I was watching a man in a room, like, really eloquently express his pain. And—it was so sad to me, and so—. After the show, I was leaving P.S. 122, and I’m walking down the steps, and Spalding Gray came up behind me, and he said, “How do you find walking around New York? Do you find that it’s hard?” and I said, “You know, I’m kind of used to it.” He pulls up his pant leg, and he shows me a brace, like a plastic brace that’s cupping his heel and he said, “Greg, I’ve had to really learn how to walk all over again, and it’s just really hard.” He said, “I feel like I’m too old to be learning how to do that.” I realized that as I was walking down the stairs, which takes me some time to do anyway, that I had to slow down to stay in pace with him, you know? And so here’s this guy, who had been, who is, like, a hero to me, you know? And I am having to slow down for him, you know, to stay in step with him.

We get out to the street, and his partner is there, and she’s saying, “Oh, Spalding is so happy that you came here, and so happy that you enjoyed the show.” But I looked over at him, and he didn’t look like any of those things. He was just sort of staring down at the street. Then I just said goodbye. You know, at first I said, “Well, thanks for the show, and I’ll see you later,” and then I just got this overwhelming feeling—. I just told him, you know, I’m like, “I really love you, and your work has meant a tremendous—it’s just been so much to me. And I really love you. And thank you for everything and how much you’ve inspired me,” and I was really emotional. Probably more emotional than I normally would have been, just saying goodbye to someone.

But I really, really felt like when I shook his hand, like he wasn’t really present in his body, and I swear I felt like I wasn’t ever going to see him again. And—shortly after that, he was reported missing, during the winter. And then, you know, of course we know now that he committed suicide and jumped—it’s thought that he jumped off the Staten Island Ferry and committed suicide. And he had talked about doing it before. Or so the reports said. It was just a really hard loss. I mean, he’s not a person that I knew extraordinarily well. But—I felt like, you know, he was so self-expressed in his work. You would hope that that would help a person work through some of that stuff. And it was just really sad. It was just really sad, his battle, his

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demons became so great that he decided to end it all, and I sort of wish, like— like the guy who taught us so much about storytelling could have given us a different ending. But it seems like such a—such a sort of—it seems like the wrong ending. It seems like there’s stuff missing. And—you almost feel like, had he not jumped, had he not jumped, he would just be writing another show, telling us what it was like to almost jump and commit suicide. And so—. [laughs] Just, you know. It feels like somebody in my community decided to bow out and that was really hard. I mean, really difficult, really hard loss. Somebody who continues to inspire me so much, to this day. And I’m glad that I got the opportunity to say goodbye, even though I didn’t really know what was going on at the moment. But really an influential guy. And the master at this craft, you know. [pause]

Ehrlich: So—thank you so much for this interview.

08-00:30:04 Walloch: Oh, thank you so much. It’s been really—it’s been really great for me. And—

Ehrlich: Good.

Walloch: Really amazing. And I hope—I’m excited to see it when it’s done. I’m excited to see how this all fits together with all the other artists. Thanks.

Ehrlich: Great. Thanks, Greg.

08-00:30:25 Walloch: Thank you.

[end of interview]