Interview with Linda Albertano
By Suzy
Williams
Linda Albertano: poet,
feminist, peace goddess, pre-eminent Los Angeles performance artist, mistress of
cataclysmic language, and long-time Venice Resident, has had major shows at
Royce Hall, John Anson Ford Theatre, L.A. Theatre Center, The Wadsworth, and has
toured here and abroad with Alice Cooper. She is a general all-around creative
innovator, working with African instruments, sign language, and purple mohawked
punkettes. She claims satire and simile as favorite tools, and costumes and
color are generously splashed in her pieces, budget allowing. Last time we
caught up with her, she was nibbling fresh arugula in Suzy Williams’ and
Gerry Fialka’s hay strewn Fialka Funny Farm Yard:
Suzy
Williams: So, let’s start with:...Linda
, how would you describe
yourself?
Linda J.
Albertano: My goodness! I’ve never had
to do that! Well, let’s see, I’m eccentric. I’m very tall,
that’s kind of a central feature of
me...
Williams:
It’s true , you are sooo tall. Your centrifugal force would be something
to reckon
with...
Albertano:
Oh, and I don’t like convention very much, I mean I don’t stray far
from it, because I’ve been struggling to fight my way, claw my way into
the middle class , to be a card-carrying member of the middle class. You see,
I’m from poverty. But mostly, when I feel I’m being pushed into some
kind of conventional role, I object! I also object when anybody around me
expects me to squeeze into a specific role. See, my mother never told me to get
married, so I’m always shocked when I hear people tell someone else to do
that. I think, “What gives someone the right to mediate another
person’s
behavior?“
Williams:
Especially pressuring to have kids. I mean how
dare you! It’s so huge a thing to blithely toss off.
Albertano:
Yes, to assume that’s what you ought to do, just because they’ve
never thought of other options!
That’s
one of my little rants.
Williams:
So, let’s see... you’re eccentric, you’re tall, you’re
fighting with convention,
and...
Albertano:
And....inwardly, aren’t we all secretly
shy?
Williams:
That’s my theory. I think anybody
outgoing is just fighting harder against their other nature.
Albertano:
When I grew up I was absolutely seen but not
heard.
Williams:
When did you get tall? (Linda is
6’4’.)
Albertano:
Oh, always. At thirteen, that summer, I started that summer at
5’9’’, and ended it at six feet. That was the weirdest thing.
Doorknobs were in a new place all of the
sudden.
Williams:
Did it
hurt?
Albertano:
Yeah, oh everywhere. And my feet kept getting
bigger and I kept saying, “Please God! I want to wear a pair of
fashionable shoes one
day.”
Williams:
Yeah, like, how big does this thing get? So what was the atmosphere like in
your hometown in Colorado?
Albertano:
I moved around quite a bit , because I did not grow up with my parents. My
parents came from the most horrific, nightmarish childhoods, and were abandoned
and abused as children and they had no idea how to be a family, bless their
hearts.
Williams:
You have this wonderful overview, Linda. You’ve forgiven the world for not
giving you a living as a performance artist, brilliant as you are. You’ve
forgiven your mom, and your voice is cheery on the telephone answering machine.
You seem to be an optimist, like you might, while being marched into a gas
chamber, notice the blue sky and the birds flying.
Albertano:
It might be genetic, I mean the reason why I’ve forgiven my mom, is that
she is the sweetest, most creative, adorable woman in the
world.
Williams:
And she really loves you.
Albertano:
Oh, she is my major clacker. My most major person.
Williams:
Who did raise
you?
Albertano:
I grew up in foster homes. In high school I was in a girl’s home, you
see...my mom taught me to read when I was four and that’s what we did in
our house, we read. And then I went to a series of foster homes that were
selected on the basis of two things: Have a clean house and send the child to
church, which meant that you wound up with the most fundamentalist wackos! And
I’d already been exposed to the world of ideas, so it was like being held
hostage from age seven through 14. And one of the things that came from being
with all these different fundamentalists was that no matter what sect they were
in, theirs was the only one that could gain entrance into heaven. So it was
Christian vs Christian. So when you get switched from home to home to home, you
get a perspective on religion that you really can’t get any other way.
Williams:
So now are you attracted to any religion, like
Buddhism?
Albertano:
I’m really attracted to the Sufis. And
once in a while, when the Sufi Master comes to town, I go and do the movement
practice and so forth, but I’m not really a full-fledged Sufi. The foster
homes allowed no radio, no movies, of course no makeup, no dancing, I mean,
everything was a sin, so I love the Sufis, because everything that was forbidden
is a sacrament! Good food! Beautiful carpets! Jewelry! Clothing! Music!
Williams:
So I think that you started out your creative life as a
singer.
Albertano:
I was always attracted to ways of expressing
myself, because in the homes, I was not permitted to do that. I could not speak
out on my own behalf , or any behalf. I remember the first time I saw a piano, I
was so amazed. I wanted to touch the keys. Then I didn’t see one for
years. But the girls’ home had a piano. And I said: “I’m going
to learn how to play this” and they said (evil voice): “You’ll
never learn how to play that.” They never let me play more than an hour,
and then I was actually forbidden to play, as opposed to all the other girls who
were marched up and forced to take lessons. But then, in college, my mom gave
me this old, beat-up guitar. It must have been a 20-dollar guitar, and it was
made out of the heaviest wood! Cracked and glued-up, and varnished.
Williams:
And you played that
thing?
Albertano:
Yes, and with the most elastic sense of
rhythm! So then I just started writing songs...The thing that happened,
tho’, was that I went to UCLA and majored in film.
Williams:
Did you get a scholarship?
Albertano:
No, I worked my way through film school. I was a
waitress.
Williams:
Wow, you were disciplined! Do you have some films that you like that you made at
UCLA?
Albertano:
I do, but they’re on 8 millimeter....
but I did well in film school. I graduated with honors.
Williams:
You probably were a person, too, who was
really interactive with the teacher.
Albertano:
No. Well, first my teacher interacted with me
and told me who I should get to be my cameraman, and what I should do, and my
film started looking crummy, so I scrapped it , and never went back to school
until the day that I showed my film. But I knew I didn’t want to work in
the film factory, the film
abattoir.
Williams: So then you started singing?
Albertano:
Well, when I graduated , I was offered a job, either as a go-fer for a
trailer-house, or I could be the manager of the restaurant that I was working
in.
Sooo....
Williams:
Which one was that?
Albertano:
Victoria Station, when it was brand new. There was one on Sepulveda at that
time. And this was great for me because by then I was an extreme feminist. And
then especially, jobs were often divided along gender lines. There weren’t
women bartenders. There weren’t women chefs. And in Victoria Station,
there were no women waiting tables. So all the women’s jobs were
cocktail waitresses and hostesses, and the tips were teeny! A three-dollar
drink, as opposed to a thirty dollar dinner. So we were working the same number
of hours...
Williams:
And getting just as
exhausted....
Albertano:
Yes, and that just rankled me. At first I started agitating to get a better
position, but they didn’t want to hear rhetoric, they wanted results.
They started cutting back my shifts. So then I set out to do the best job as a
hostess, and I did. I could make people wait for three hours for their dinner!
They told me I wasn’t strong enough to be a waiter, so I pointed out all
the runty male waiters that I was beating at arm wrestling every night! Then
they decided I’d have to be a bus boy first, so I simply went to the best,
most legendary bus boy, wined and dined him and he told me his secret: always
move and always move fast, be at a run.
Williams:
Right! There’s washing dishes, and then
there’s speed washing: that’s just washing dishes
faster!
Albertano:
So that’s how I became a manager- they
did not want a woman waiting tables. And the men they hired for managers were
really quite average, I had graduated from UCLA with honors. So I started
hiring, lo and behold: women bartenders, women chefs, and women bus boys. But
there was a sabotage that started going on.. they wouldn’t let me wear
pants, but they’d order me to climb up on the roof in my heels and see
what was going on ...and they’d say: “You’re so stupid,
I’m going to make you do this right if I have to screw it into you!”
I thought: “This is a cartoon! People don’t really talk like
this!” But eventually, after much more struggle with the Machiavellian
management above me , I was able to bring a suit which resulted in a settlement
: that every Victoria Station in America would hire on a gender free basis!
Williams:
So you made an ERA (Equal Rights Amendment)
before the ERA. Wow! I still can’t believe they haven’t put that in
the Constitution! But tell me, were you one of those gals who were reading Betty
Friedan and going to women’s conferences and
such?
Albertano:
Consciousness raisers, yes. We had our weekly
consciousness raising groups at UCLA, and they were really fabulous. I found
through those consciousness raising sessions that I had somehow absorbed many,
many cultural biases toward women. It was a cleansing process. I remember I said
something idiotic once, like: “If I ever have a man who abused me, I would
just make him tow the
line.”
Williams:
Oh yes! At the University of Venice class on
Feminism a couple of weeks ago, I was taught by my teacher, Peggy Lee Kennedy ,
that the important thing for the evolved Feminist was that we have to love each
other as women. Really don’t say “Hey , you should really lose ten
pounds, honey” And also don’t do unto men as they have done unto
us.
Albertano:
I remember going on a radio talk show one night, talking about women’s
issues, but people had never heard of them. Tho’ I was supposed to go on
for twenty minutes, the calls were coming so fast and furious that they
extended the whole thing for an hour. I mean, in those days, it was
revolutionary to hear somebody say that a woman could be a carpenter if she
wanted! I also talked my philosophy teacher into letting me do special studies
on feminism. He said, “Oh well, I don’t know much about it.” I
told him it wasn’t all that different from race issues, these gender
issues.
Williams:
So, after Victoria Station, what did you do?
Albertano:
I started my singing group, The Vanilla Dandies. At that time Charles Duncan,
who was a really great songwriter, moved into my house. He had the coolest
friends I had ever met in my life – creative, amazing people who came to
see me sing, and then they asked me to be in their performance art pieces...and
I had never heard of performance art, I had no idea what it was. And that was
such fun work. I just loved it! In the early eighties, I met and worked with
Molly Cleator and Lin Hixson, the great performance art director, and she got me
into a class with Rachael Rosenthal. She is a cultural treasure. The city had a
monument put out in front of her studio.
I began to hang out with artists.
We did ensemble work and I started doing pieces of my own at the Lhasa Club. To
me, I’ve always been simply writing songs or making movies, it’s not
performance or poetry to me ...it’s a song or a movie. People liked it,
the clubs would invite me back, and eventually I was performing at places like
the LA Theatre Center and Barnsdall Park.
Williams:
Give me an example of some of the art that you did
then.
Albertano:
There’s a piece called
“SOS” that was about someone who’s in love with somebody else,
who is in love with someone else. A circle of sad, rejected
people.
Williams:
Did that echo anything in your life?
Albertano:
Oh, yeah! (both laugh) Right now, I am currently nuts about Beck. And he
doesn’t even know I exist! He’s in love with someone else! Then I
did a piece at the John Anson Ford Theatre and at the LA Theatre Center for a
week on de-facto Apartheid in L.A.- It was called “Joan of Compton-Joan
of Arcadia.” And I had about 30 kids from Compton in the piece. I had
been thinking about how we just weren’t an integrated society. It troubled
me. It still does, because honestly I grew up loving America.
Williams:
Even in the sorry state that you know it to
be.
Albertano:
America is about justice and peace and freedom and liberty. American values are
really solid. They’re wonderful. Even tho’ I lived in all these
nutty fundamentalist homes, I just think that Jesus was a wonderful person, a
wonderful human being. I think he was a revolutionary, that he was for the poor
people.
Williams:
He had extra good values. “Be nice to
the prostitute.” Linda, tho, don’t you think you are looking
rose-coloredly at the country’s
values?
Albertano:
No, I think that whatever the government is,
whatever the administration is, or whatever the Pentagon is doing, that’s
not America to me. I’m afraid of those people and I’m afraid of
their values. Most people in America who still want this war with Iraq think
that the Iraqis are being deprived of American values of liberty and justice.
Williams:
You’re right. I think most Americans are sweet and innocent.
Albertano:
If they knew what was really going on, they would be horrified. They
wouldn’t stand it for a minute.
Williams:
Especially the women. The trusting wives.
Albertano:
More of us have to be in politics. Oh! I forgot to tell you about this whole
chapter in my life. I sang folksongs with this other tall girl in the USO
during Vietnam.
Williams:
You’re too young to have done that!
Albertano:
Well, I was a
zygote!
Williams:
So what was that
like?
Albertano:
We were out for five months and we did Alaska,
Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Korea. The Philippines were this Paradise
overlaid with the crassness of America. Playboy insignia everywhere. My tour
guide was dressed like a low rider. He wore black loafers with giant cleats on
them. He had rolled a pack of cigarettes in his t-shirt sleeve and his hair was
in a greasy drainpipe. But when we got to this exquisite Pagasanan waterfall, he
slipped everything off and dived into the pool and he came up as this beautiful
indigenous God.
At night, I would go
walking down a county road and the children would come out of their homes and
they would just follow me. I felt like the Pied Piper! I must have had 20 or 30
kids behind me on this country road. And they started singing “Doe a deer,
a female deer”. It was magic!
Then in Vietnam I made friends with
some of the children on the street - I had such a good time with them. The
soldiers told them to go away. To me they said “They just want your
money.” That was all such a lie! I later did a piece about it called
“Mercenary Children” at the John Anson-Ford Theatre. Once an
American soldier showed me a photo of Vietnamese corpses. And he was proud.
That never left me. I was shocked right down to the soles of my shoes. By that,
and by the way the American soldiers in Korea would gun their jeeps, leaving the
compound, so the Koreans would be forced to scatter or be injured. I really
understand why the Koreans were infuriated when those girls were run over
recently.
Williams: So what were some of
your top fave gigs?
Albertano:
The LA Theatre Center, and The International
Poetry Festival in Amsterdam, that was INCREDIBLE! There were poets from all
over the world, we stayed at a hotel together, had breakfast, did pieces
together, oh! and The Lhasa Club! “Drugs, Politics and Modern Sex,”
I had a run of that piece there. And I always loved doing Lin Hixon’s art
extravaganzas.
Williams:
So what’s on your mind for your next
project?
Albertano:
Well, I spend so much time with the music now.
I’ve really enjoyed taking up this new instrument, the Kora.
Williams:
That’s right! You’re playing with Prince Diabate now! I think he is
one of L.A.’s great stars. He is such a great
performer!
Albertano:
Yes, he’s such a master, a real griot,
and he’s so wise. We played Royce Hall and the Getty Museum, and the roof
came off the Getty! Nobody’d ever danced on that stage before.
Williams:
Oh Linda Albertano, I have loved this time with you so much! Say, do you have
any parting words? (both laugh) ...Or something your mother might have
said?
Albertano:
My mother always said: “Never get married! Live with them if you have to,
but never get married!”,
Posted: Sat
- March 1, 2003 at 06:04 PM