Category Archives: Delusional Grandeur Tour

I feel you. Yes, you. Out there, in the dark, holding up your lighters and your phones and all the hope in the world. You lift me up, you give me power, you give me glory. Arms outstretched, arms welcoming the sky, arms welcoming the night, the moon, the stars and the sun again.

I feel you. You, shouting my name, shouting for more, shouting like your life depends on it. You scream the lifeblood of mercy. You scream for redemption, for all the unredeemable things we’ve done. You scream to feel again. I scream back.

And I still feel you. Waves of adoration like love lapping at the shore of the spotlight. Riotous applause and raucous cheers, all that excitement feeding on itself, a frenzy of grasping hands, desperate grabs for a piece of it, ravenous appetites and the morsel of a wink and smile.

Do you feel it? In the air, in the night wind, in the height of summer, and the sprawling year before another summer arrives?

Listen for it. Wait for it. Prepare for it.

Star-fucked vainglory.

Delusions of grandeur.

Absolute annihilation.

The very last time.

THE DELUSIONAL GRANDEUR TOUR: LAST STAND OF A ROCK STAR

PREAMBLE:

It begins with a girl dancing. The choreographed abandon is limited only by the pastel confines of her bedroom. ‘Baba O’Riley’ is blasting over the stereo, and the girl thrashes wildly in carefully-executed movements. You’d almost think it was unstaged, yet this is practice. Each motion is deliberate. Each exercise is calculated. Each toss of her hair absolutely planned. The end result, though, is the look of sheer unbridled wildness, a thrashing of controlled chaos. She would make the world think she had lost control, and she’d hold that world in the palm of her hand.

She spins round and round, jumping up and down, while those iconic guitar chords herald the arrival of something magnificent. She mouths the words, ‘Teenage wasteland,’ and stops. It won’t work. It won’t be enough. She looks in the mirror as the music plays. She pulls off her blouse, tugs her skirt down, and stands there in a bra and underwear. As the familiar musical progression sounds again, she modifies her movements now that she is free from the binds of her Catholic school-girl uniform. It is at that moment when she realizes what must be done.

A pounding on the door, and then the sharp words of her father: ‘Madonna, get ready for school.’

The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star

Once

upon

a

time…

Once

upon

a

dream…

A dream is a wish…

Dream away…

Dream dream dream…

But if I know you, I know what you’ll do

You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream

But if I know you, I know what you’ll do

You’ll love me at once

The way you did once upon a dream

– Jack Lawrence

The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star

Kindly take your seats, and hold onto your hats.

This is The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star

The title is both facetious (I’m not really a Rock Star, duh) and prophetically accurate (I am delusional, and grand). As the Tour goes on, you’ll see that something deeper is at work, and it’s the culmination of all the other tours that came before this one, neatly tying things up with one of the boldest confessions I’ve made. It wasn’t an easy journey, and there may not be a happy ending, but there is magic to be found along the way, and the sort of enchantment that only comes from taking a trip together.

Let’s begin with a tease of what’s to come:

The Table of Contents

• 1) INTRO/CURTAIN
• 2) SUNSET POOL
• 3) ON THE ROAD HOTEL
• 4) ROCK STAR ADDICT
• 5) ANIMAL DEMONS
• 6) STEAM PUNK BIRDCAGE
• 7) RED RIDING WOOD
• 8) WINTER TOP HAT
• 9) WARRIOR RETRIBUTION
• 10) GLAMOUR FASHION
• 11) SAMSARA HEALING WATER
• 12) SPRING SALVATION
• 13) FLOWER BOMB BALM

As the curtain rises this one final time, I invite you to come along for the ride.

Something special is in the offing,

something poignant rides on this wind,

and something tells me this is going to be the best one of them all.

The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star

Tomorrow marks the kick-off to The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star. To celebrate, we’re having a few people over for a little gathering, a smaller more-intimate vibe to open things up. Such a ‘soft opening’ is a lady-like dipping of my toes into the touring pool, a gingerly testing of the water so to speak. I’ll open hard in Boston and Cape Cod a few weeks later, but for now we begin at home. The way the Delusional Grandeur Tour posts will work is that whenever I go somewhere, I’ll post a few more pages from the Tour Book, along with more expansive photos that weren’t included. In other words, don’t fret if you don’t get to see the Tour Book in person – you’ll get to see much more right here. (Of course if you want your own hard copy, I may be putting up a misprinted version for sale – one of the pages is out of order but otherwise it’s practically perfect. Inquire directly if you are seriously interested. Or look for it on eBay one of these days.)

In between the official Tour Book posts will be the Tour Stop posts, in which I’ll regale you with tales from the road. (In essence, it will be the same shit I post here whenever I go away, simply marked under the umbrage of a ‘tour’. Hence the ‘Delusional’ aspect of just about everything you will see here.)

Basically, we’re going to do this tour together, you and I. Come along for the ride, if you would. The road is far less lonelier that way.

On my very first tour, in the ancient time of 1995, ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (the musical version) played a big part in inspiration and wardrobe. The drama-heavy themes of Norma Desmond, her unrequited love for Joe Gillis, and her insatiable love for herself, were a necessary training ground for campy excess and histrionic emotional warfare. On the surface, it was a diva’s delight – sumptuous costumes and accessories, fringed lamps, and a car upholstered in leopard – but going deeper there was a fractured and highly-sensitive soul tortured by the ticking of time, and the cold-uncaring eyes of “a world that passed her by.” Those eyes included those of Mr. Gillis, and for my last tour (soft opening August 1!) I am revisiting the Boulevard, only this time I’m not playing up the role of Ms. Desmond… not yet.

Sunset Boulevard, twisting boulevard
Secretive and rich, a little scary
Sunset Boulevard, tempting boulevard
Waiting there to swallow the unwary

Dreams are not enough to win a war
Out here they’re always keeping score
Beneath the tan the battle rages

Smile a rented smile, fill someone’s glass
Kiss someone’s wife, kiss someone’s ass
We do whatever pays the wages

Sunset Boulevard, headline boulevard
Getting here is only the beginning
Sunset Boulevard, jackpot boulevard
Once you’ve won you have to go on winning

This will be a full-circle tour. Back in 1995, I was very much obsessed with Ms. Desmond and her glorious staircase at 10086 Sunset Boulevard. At the time, I felt an affinity with Norma and her pining away for a man who didn’t love her, someone who was doomed by her own delusions of grandeur, yet frightened and scared of the world at the same time. She exhibited a brittle fragility somehow bound with steely strength and determination, and a belief in herself and her own charm that carried her through the long years of being left alone. It could not have been a happy life, but it certainly held a note of fascination, dark and morbid and hopeful all at once.

This time around I’m channeling Joe Gillis, who always paled in comparison to Norma’s fierce spotlight-seeking heat, but who carried his own tale of disillusionment and dashed dreams. In fact, his story may have been a little sadder – at least Norma reached those heights once in her life – Joe never got that chance to soar.

Sunset Boulevard, frenzied boulevard
Swamped with every kind of false emotion
Sunset Boulevard, brutal boulevard
Just like you, we’ll wind up in the ocean

She was sinking fast, I threw a rope
Now I have suits and she has hope
It seemed an elegant solution

One day this must end, it isn’t real
Still I’ll enjoy a hearty meal
Before tomorrow’s execution

Sunset Boulevard, ruthless boulevard
Destination for the stony-hearted
Sunset Boulevard, lethal boulevard
Everyone’s forgotten how they started
Here on Sunset Boulevard!

COMING SOON:

The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star ~ 2015-2016

No more wars to fight
White flags fly tonight
You are out of danger now
Battlefield is still
Wild poppies on the hill
Peace can only come when you surrender
Here the tracers fly
Lighting up the sky
But I’ll fight on to the end
Let them send their armies 
I will never bend
I won’t see you now ’till I surrender
I’ll see you again when I surrender.

COMING SOON:

The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star ~ 2015-2016

The naming of a Tour is of paramount importance. It sets the whole tone for all that follows, for the themes that the Tour Book will explore, for whatever is on my mind of late. For one’s Final Tour, it becomes even more significant. This is how things will be remembered. The Final Chapter. The Last Hurrah. The Grand Finale.

The list of previous tours is evidence that the name is critical in conveying what will be examined and celebrated. Sometimes they are simple and straightforward, other times they are multi-layered and imbued with deeper symbolism and double-implications. All of them have meant something intensely personal to me, and hopefully to some of you:

• Chameleon in Motion: The Friendship Tour – 1995
• The Magical Mystery Tour: Master of Manipulation – 1996
• The Royal Rainbow World Tour: Alan Is King! – 1997 (and oh how I regret that last part, with an exclamation point no less)
• The Talented Trickster Tour: Reflections of a Floating World – 2003
• The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale – 2005/2006
• A 21^st Century Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour – 2010

This time around, with the albatross of history languidly chugging alongside the desire for an unbound future, I wanted to do something that acknowledged the big reveal of this tour. It deconstructs all that came before, while simultaneously playing up the very notion it sets out to destroy.

In the end it could only come down to this:

The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star

Make of it what you will…

And get ready to rock…

One Last Time.

I don’t want to be alone, that’s all in the past.

This world’s waited long enough, I’ve come home at last.

~ Norma Desmond