Tour Whore, September 9, 2012

Gifting (or: The road to goodwill is paved with sweets and pastries.)
by Cameryn Moore

There is a delicate gift economy out here on tour, circulating a steady stream of largesse among the performers and the volunteers and the staff and the technicians and the patrons. There are no rules, it’s not predictable in the slightest, and yet it’s there.

Obviously some gifts are traditional, simple etiquette of long-standing usage: do something nice for your billet, give your technician booze. The form of the gift is not of the essence, just the gesture. So, for example, when I have been broke—which has been most of this year’s tour—I have simply cooked extra dinner one night and shared with my host. It really is the thought that counts.

(Booze for the tech is somewhere between a gift and a bribe, actually. Or a gift and deliberately sought-after goodwill, in the same way that my signature peanut-butter fudge gets made and circulated at least one day during most Fringes, or that my monkey bread makes an appearance at a special pre- or early Fringe brunch. The road to goodwill is paved with sweets and pastries.)

...even while he was walking away I was already tearing into it.

Other gifts, though, are utterly without precedent and come from nowhere, arriving without warning but usually at the right time. In Victoria this year, at the closing night party, I was just sitting at a table when suddenly an audience member walked up to my table, set down an awkwardly shaped package in a plastic grocery bag, and walked away quickly, like a thin, clean-shaven Santa Claus caught in the act. I have never been good about waiting to open presents, so even while he was walking away I was already tearing into it. There was a tin of homemade almond roca and a candy thermometer. 

I was kind of flabbergasted for two seconds, and then remembered a conversation we had had a few nights before, there at the Fringe club, when I had shared the last few pieces of fudge with him and his friend, and mentioned that I make fudge by guesswork, not having a candy thermometer to work with. He said that he loved making candy and was really good with almond roca. “Oh my god, that’s my favorite!” I had exclaimed and we had a little foodie orgasm moment together, and then the swirl of Fringe club festivities started up and we went back to our individual tables and that was that. 

Except it wasn’t. I was pretty stunned. He remembered our conversation, and made a batch of the almond roca, and tied it all up with two kinds of pretty ribbon, and lugged it around all day, and when I ran over and hugged him, his smile of pure joy was beautiful to see. And I felt loved and heard and someone remembers me and thinks about me and what I might like.

(Free fish and chips, thank you, sir!)

Gifts aren’t things we need, necessarily; they are things that give us pleasure, and on tour, I don’t know what that’s going to be until it happens. In Winnipeg I stood in line and chatted for 10 minutes with an audience member at the King’s Head; he freely admitted that he had never seen one of my shows, but he admired the presence I made at the Fringe, and when the line finally reached the register, he told the bartender, “I’m paying for her, whatever it is.” (Free fish and chips, thank you, sir!)

A Calgary friend/fan is studying drawing and painting media, and had made it his project over the course of the year to render photos of all of his FB friends into drawings or paintings. He saved me for last, and when he came to my show this year, he brought a watercolor rendition, carefully sealed in plastic, of my slut (r)evolution photo. The time that went into that, my god!

In Victoria last year, when I was chatting with someone in a line-up and mentioned that I would be doing slut (r)evolution there the following year, he said, “Oh my god, I have a button that you totally need to have!” Inwardly I shrugged; no promises on the sidewalk and I’ll believe it when I see it. But three days later, when I saw him again in another line-up, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pin that read Macho Slut. He had received it in the press kit for Macho Slut back when Patrick Califia released the book back in 1988. The button is a bona fide collectible. And he remembered and wanted me to have it.

I’ve gotten books of poetry, novels, cookies, flowers. In Calgary this year, one of my favorite patrons gave me a fantastic word game, Bananagrams, played it with me in the artists’ lounge for nearly two hours, and then told me I really brought out her “inner whore”.

See, that’s actually the real gift. That’s the part that I love, not the physical token, but the tag that accompanies it, a tag, written or verbal, that tells you why they’re giving it to you. In Winnipeg, someone handed me a card with a $5 Starbucks gift card. Coffee is great, but what she wrote was better: “My boyfriend and I have been having sexual problems for years. After we went to your show (power | play), we had some kind of breakthrough and now we’re doing better than we’ve done in a long time. The card isn’t enough, but we wanted to let you know.”

I don’t think you can write a thank-you note for a thank-you note, because that would get really circular really fast, but yeah. I don’t need to be thanked, but I need to know that I’m making a difference. So… thank you.

camerynmoore.com