Puddles Pity Party

and a bit of Jane Pity Party too

I don’t know how I got on to Puddles Pity Party. Probably it was very late one night and I was mooching around YouTube, and his cover of Lorde’s song Royals was trending.

Last week I watched Royals again, and his magnificent cover of Cohen’s Hallelujah. That video also shows some of his backstage preparations, and if his charisma and deep well of emotion hasn’t already been obvious to any viewer (if he’s so good, howcum he wears that stoopid clown get-up?) (because he’s a performance artist, you dipshit) they hit like a broadside accident.

Over on his website I clicked on Dates. He was going to be performing in Port Charlotte, Florida, on Boxing Day. I could be in Port Charlotte, Florida, on Boxing Day. I bought a ticket and reserved a room.

I drove down, starting on the I75 and when I got tired of that circus, moving over to the slower Route 41. I stopped for a 15-mile bike ride down and back on the Cape Haze Pioneer Trail. It was about four when I got to the hotel.

I realized during my drive south that there could be an eency weency problem. I had lost my driver’s license when I went through security at YHZ. Someone was mailing it to me, but it hadn’t arrived. I had not thought to bring my passport. Therefore, I had no picture ID.

Pity party short, they would not let me register. I would have to drive back to Tampa after the show. Or sleep in the car.

In my sweaty filthy hobo clothes I hung out in a Wendy’s. The sun westered and began to sink. I really did not want to drive back to Tampa after the show. Too tired. It would have to be on the I75, because to take the 41 would increase the trip by about two hours. I knew this from experience. A shadow hung over me. I got out of Wendy’s and moved to the parking lot of the venue, where I parked nose out near the exit so as to get the hell out of dodge as soon as possible. Then I hung out for another hour.

If I had been in the hotel room I would have showered and changed my sweaty filthy hobo clothes for other hobo clothes. As it was, I dragged a brush half way through my hobo hair and went on in.

Many people milling in the lobby were wearing replicas of Puddles’ capelet. This cheered me up immediately. The replicas were very cunningly made from flattened basket coffee filters strung together, decorated with three small black pom-poms. They were free. A woman named Nancy stapled one at the back of my neck. Further cheered. At the merch table, along with shirts and buttons, were small replica crowns, made from those red drink cups, spray-painted gold. Somebody had a way with thrifty crafts.

I overheard someone say, “I’ve known Puddles for years.” Instantly, a mystery resolved itself. I had thought many many times about why there was no apostrophe in Puddles Pity Party. Surely it should be Puddle’s Pity Party? Or, if his name were Puddles and not Puddle, then at least Puddles’ Pity Party?

I now knew. Pity Party is part of his name, not something Puddles possesses. I marched down to my first row seat. A projection let us know photographs and videos were encouraged.

Puddles wandered on stage ten minutes early.

He went through lovely small silent movements to get himself situated on a stool, and opened a copy of Rolling Stone with Kevin Kostner on the cover. Those of us in the know knew what that meant. People began coming down to the front and taking selfies with Puddles. For every shot he assumed a pose and a face. Fifty people, maybe more, came down.

He’s a big man, six foot forever in a pristine clown outfit of white with black rickrack on the capelet, wrists and ankles, and three big black pom-poms down the front. Whiteface. White cotton gloves. On his feet are white Connies with red laces and another line of rick-rack around the midsole. He wears a small gold leather crown with a P, set askew. The crown comes in a few different sizes in the various videos, all of them definitely not the crown of any monarch. Much too small: More the crown of a jester. Court fool.

The show was amazing. Puddles is an expressive. In a very funny way he shows what it is to be frail and human. He does not speak; he mutters once in a while but really he only sings, with a magnificent baritone. He has a terrifically profound sense of what disparate things will go together. It sounds obvious, because I had seen Puddles only on YouTube, but I felt like I had had seen him only caged, flat, in two dimensions, and here he was in three, moving, making faces, dancing  and clowning with audience members onstage and off, climbing on seats. All over the place. He sang  Townshend’s Pinball Wizard with a twang, to the tune of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues. It fit perfectly. Brilliant. He sang  Weatherly’s Danny Boy with a video of a baby with a fading smile and eyes slowly overflowing with tears.

Royals was performed in front of a video made at the same time as the one on YouTube, but this was a second version, without Puddles in it, because he was on stage with us. And that Rolling Stone with Kevin Kostner? Foreshadowing of Puddles’ cover of Dion’s My Heart Will Go On done while swooning to a montage of Kostner’s hits and misses.

You can read around about Puddles. Watch videos. His street name is Big Mike Geier. From Georgia. He’s blown them away at the Edinburgh Fringe and many other places. In interviews, Geier talks about Puddles in the third person. In interviews, Puddles doesn’t talk. I had written to his agent, asking for a sit-down with Puddles or Geier over some pie and coffee, and mentioned we wouldn’t have to chat. The agent replied, nicely, that neither Geier nor Puddles would be doing any interviews in Florida. But I tell you, pie with Puddles would be something pretty great.

After the show, Puddles sat in the lobby for photos. A huge crowd waited in line. I don’t know for sure, but I bet you anything he stayed until every single shot was taken, even if it took all night.

I got out of town OK and wonder of wonders, the drive back to Tampa was better than fine. The night was so warm I had the windows down the whole way, hobo hair flying in the wind. The fourteen-hour-old coffee in my thermos tasted great. The I75 has recently been resurfaced and it was a magic carpet ride. Traffic enough but the road rolled on like a ribbon as I drove between the cat eyes in my bubble in the dark.