“First of all bullfighting is, as somebody once said very well, indefensible andirresistible …but I’ve turned against it for very much the same reason that my father, who was a great hunter, suddenly stopped hunting he said, “I’ve killed enough animals.” I’m ashamed of myself…I’ve seen enough of those animals dead, it was…a waste…almost all Spanish intellectuals have been against bullfighting for the last 150 years…Lorca is one of the few Spanish intellectuals who ever approved of bullfighting.”
— Orson Welles, 1974
If I were teaching a class on Brian Alessandro’s literature, I’d call it: “How Hard it is to Write and Move an Audience…With Unattractive Individuals.”
Alessandro’s follow up to the impressive The Unmentionable Mann (2015) is even more deviant, crafty, and insightful than its predecessor. His fifth novel (two previously unpublished, including Freud Droid which some avid readers lucky to get their hands on it — consider his best work and his first book, An Ego Dream Game, self-published in a limited edition in 2003) takes the gloves off completely and gathers prisoners as aggressively as it tries to shame the devil.
I admired the novel without liking a single character.
In what I felt initially had superficial similarities to a Todd Solondz film and its themes (the smug white suburban malaise, the yuppie heart of darkness, the emphatic white man’s ironic slouch towards racism or sexuality, etc.) Performer Non Grata is actually a backhanded slap at the hideous nature of white male masculinity (particularly) in all its toxic forms and incarnations (he displays the gamut’s psychosis from heterosexual to homosexual to beyond) and the violent escapades that that culture breeds. Our contempt for animals, women, and all entities that could be construed as their “others” is alarming and exquisitely detailed in this phantasmagoric book.
Centered around Risk Bonaventura, an American corporate zombie, and his deranged obsession with bullfighting and all that it implies— we are embroiled in a bizarre menage-a-trois between him, Javier his Spanish matador lover and Lorna, his wife, an academic and teacher (a character inspired by the deteriorated passion and warped ideology of none other than the disappointing Camile Paglia), Performer Non Grata is many things. But it is principally a crystallization of what has been latent in Alessandro’s entire body of work – from his novels to his plays, his film Afghan Hound, even some of his drawings – the pursuit of characters who are not particularly likeable. Especially Queer characters, that’s where his transgression lies. Javier is deeply disturbing, transmitting both homicidal and suicidal urges of the imprisoned masculine Queer; Risk and Lorna’s sociopathic son, Theo, is a graphic example of all that is terrible, coming to fruition. When you read the book, ask yourself: Which of these awful renderings could be me? The title says it all: there is no performer. There is only you.
The book is an orgy of sadism, meditations on Feminine and Masculine psychologies, the horror of rape culture, and the schadenfreude ethos of our media world and literally everything it embodies.
I could say it’s about a bullfighter, but it isn’t. And the novel in no way glorifies the atrocious act of killing a bull. It skewers the male perversion of wanting to become a bull fighter. I make this point because, unfortunately, many progressive and radical activists are losing their knack for insight and humor and are not understanding the differences between satire, irony, parody versus work that promotes violence against animals. I find it deeply disturbing that we allow Ernest Hemingway to sit comfortably on the edges of the Left because of his association with Cuba and later Castro – while not acknowledging his passionate desire to exert and romanticize aggressive male behavior, namely hunting and bullfighting. Orson Welles, in a stunning 1974 BBC interview, conceded how terribly wrong he was to have indulged in such a backward mode of thinking and behaving and he declared how sad he was that he and his ilk had participated in the murder of animals.
I could say the book is obsessed with rape but it isn’t. I could say it’s merely about toxic masculinity, but it isn’t. It transmits aspects of toxic masculinity. And it becomes increasingly the result of those toxicities, it expresses the pangs of the spoils of war.
I could say the novel seems to hold several mirrors up to the myriad of rotten pathologies in Western society but it doesn’t….at least not in a detached way. And if it doesn’t do that it’s not a mirror. However it is a reflection.
Alessandro houses a grotesque gallery of 21st century psychosis, proclivities, and behaviors— all which are vicious and antagonistic avatars, revealing the damage we endure and witness in our everyday life.
You learn a lot about a writer you like by focusing on how you approach their work. It’s unconscious of course, but it does determine a lot of how you process and inquire. If works of art are personal it’s also because we share a bit of ourselves as we interpret it.
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If Unmentionable Mann was statelier and more mainstream, Performer Non Grata is more challenging and akin to the madcap, with its gravely dark humor barbed like a wire. Unlike many writers or filmmakers who try to employ a heavy satire or understated morality (often lapsing into nihilism – a problem for White authors as it is for Black hip-hop artists ) Alessandro is not trying to flex his “awareness” or wink at the problems of the white bourgeoisie or his working-stiff brethren, somehow desperate to always make a clever point at how moribund their culture is. Alessandro actually cares about his characters, despite how atrocious they are. Most artists nowadays and since the New Millennium have derogated themselves to cynicism, hipster irony, and the celebration of their worthlessness— as opposed to seriously criticizing it. The way most White people shrug their shoulders when confronted with changing the racist mores of their culture or how most men (gay or straight) recede like a middle-aged man’s hairline – when confronted with challenging other men on the oppression inflicted on women – our mothers, sisters, daughters, lovers, friends, aunts, teachers, co-workers, etc. – and the bestiality committed on our children’s minds.
When satire became smug parody, social commentary loses its way. An early critical observation I encountered with other readers or critics was that perhaps Alessandro’s characters were too venal, not aware enough of their harm to themselves and particularly to their victims, the people they inflict physical and psychological violence upon. But I came away feeling that was his point. To have these characters care would be dishonest. True caring is in the writing of the book. The characters are just that: characters. And so are most people.
Burroughs, Genet haunt the book marginally – but I would actually say the Rabelaisian spirit in the book is found through the alienated great grandchildren of Marshall McLuhan: abandoned and angry in this digital Sahara we are in – clamoring through the character of Theo, who asserts his power in the book (and over the reader) by his demented depictions that he wields through the power of YouTube, the young sociopath exceeding what McLuhan imagined, we’ve divorced ourselves through technology whilst creating a “global village,” but have made that community one that is steeped in the demonic nature of defiling and exploiting. A literal “futurist” notion of how to push the horror of rape. Theo makes YouTube scary in a very clear, direct, and immediate way. I am glad I don’t have children.
Alessandro’s proclivity for crafting an enjoyable reading experience about unlikable characters, is a conscious maintenance of art. Employing caricature, even profane exaggeration, he paints on his canvas in a myriad of ways – literary characters—not ersatz “real” people. I am not sure when audiences lost touch with characters VS “real” people and began to foolishly and erroneously judge dramatic art based on its human characters’ verisimilitude as “actual” persons living next door. Art is about the insides not “the next door.” If art does actually teach, then you learn from characters – not actual people.
When actors do it, principally in movies, it tells you more about yourself than about them. We like “the bad guy” in movies for example because he may be what most people actually want to be. There’s a strange notion that the more pitched, strained, or exaggerated an actor’s performance or mannerisms – the less human they are. The West has been categorically labeling behaviors and assigning pathologies based on our physical behavior and how we appear for at least the past five hundred years and no one finds it bizarre that our schools, teachers, critics have a nasty desire to keep ‘human reality’ at a base level, never rising above a Library tone of voice, never acknowledging the horror of civilization or the grandeur of opera in our lives.
In his excellent article entitled “Considering a Place in Fiction for Badly Behaved Queers” for the Gay & Lesbian Review, Alessandro expounds on this and specifically how it pertains to the presentation of Queer characters in novels and movies. The biggest misconception is that “reality” is truth. Where in fact we all know the reverse is the truth. And while it is true that most “lessons,” emotional impacts and even lingering thoughts are mainly imbued through the technique of “bad” characters, Black, Queer, and Women artists have to always mine the impositions of their double-consciousness when presenting behaviors because it is usually members of the oppressed class that do battle with the “cops in the head” when attempting to reveal the ugly side of any milieu, whether it’s real or completely made-up. It’s one thing for the stupid critic to attack you, a whole other thing when it’s a member of your own tribe.
The characters, even when slightly alien, are all manifestations of archetypes in one way or another, but Lorna and Theo reveal something else behind the mask. They are contemptuous in ways that are more insidious than the husband and father. Maybe it’s because they are, too, results of these Risks in life. When you read the book, you may pay attention to this dynamic. Alessandro does a superb job spinning the cobweb amidst this trio, an admirable quality in prose and one that is particularly cinematic.
While Risk felt easy enough for me to critique because of my own innate dislike (and disinterest) for such figures, it’s his freaky wife and son that disgusted me so — and upon which the novel’s emotional elements hinge on. Lorna and Theo would be more traditionally linked to the underarm of patriarchy, as victims of course. And they are, as well as being willing participants in the oppressive and hateful matrix known as capitalism. Alessandro makes them as ugly, if not more so, than the appalling weak Risk and the demented Javier, the toxic male embodiments, and their Queer applications. If the men were the cause, the women and children are the symptoms (Lorna’s thesis on rape is absolutely appalling and probably one of the best modern excoriations of the empathic losses we seem to be gaining every single day in the United States alone ). Upon my third reading, I was very excited how the novel seamlessly unfolds due to the character’s psychology and behavior. That may sound obvious, but it’s not. Some great novels are steeped in “telling a story,” versus character portraits. One way isn’t better than the other, the impact a writer makes is owning up to their strengths and not trying to con us. Alessandro is interested in psychology, he has a Master’s degree in it. And he applies that to character construction, not plot ornamentation.
I maintain if we reduce Shakespeare to plot — there’s nothing there. Shakespeare is about everything else. He exists in HOW and WHAT. Not the “meanings” or plot. And certainly not in appealing to audiences who want to be flattered. If you ever meet a Lady MacBeth or Richard III — run. Because they will not be anything remotely as fascinating as Shakespeare’s creations.
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Creations. This is where Brian Alessandro thrives: where he lets loose. I like his anarchic humor and his uniquely “patrician punk” approach to writing and I hope he takes it further. For its all HIM. And in his world he has a lot to share about the society we participate in. Edmund White astutely declared the book as “speaking to our crazy times.” It’s not reflective of the times. It is the times. Within the novel, there’s nothing sacred (except annihilation) and nothing pure (except self-hatred, compliance to imperialist cruelty) and the heartbeat of the book seems crunched in and viperous and reaching out through its tentacles of social media and the internet. Kubrick gives you HAL. Alessandro gives you Theo. Pay attention, this character will have more gravity in the years to come. For the sociopathy of youth is the future of the novel and the world. Alessandro may in fact be linked to Kubrick’s clinical beliefs: man is fixed. He won’t change, possibly can’t – ever. He just develops…and usually that means his ability to hate, inflict pain, destroy just becomes more sophisticated. Anthony Burgess famously criticized Kubrick’s cinematic vision of Alex, his creation in his novel Clockwork Orange. Burgess felt that post 1968 Americans want (need?) to acknowledge that there is no hope, whilst Burgess himself was convinced change is always possible. It certainly is a moral choice how we decide to leave our characters. Do they learn lessons, is there a consciousness that gets expanded? Is there an empathy that gets embraced? (Funny enough, these questions rarely get specifically oriented. Gender, sex, identity aside – Native Americans/Indigenous and Blacks have a far more complex, darker, and brighter notion of “hope” than any white man could conceive. Except for Beckett or Kafka. Or even Burroughs, who’d probably state that if he had hope, he wouldn’t be a writer.)
Something I was struck by and never had considered after first reading was how much gay men’s struggles with masculinity are not just about seeking approval from other men in the way that hetero men do, but also in the ways that hetero women seek male attention/approval of their femininity. While I knew that was the case in terms of physique. Speaking with the novel’s editor, Laura Schleifer, I don’t think I quite realized that “performative/ritualistic acts of masculinity like bullfighting might be done by the male gays for the male gaze of the male gays.” It was something of a revelation to me when she announced this.
I refer to filmmaking or avatars of ‘smart’ independent cinema to broach the problem and connection I see inherent in both literature and movies: there’s a LOT of criticism of everything, facts even, tons of information but very little about life. And very little expression from a place of either genuine fear or outrage. The white nihilist filmmakers I grew up with like Todd Solondz and Neil LaBute did a lot of damage to my generation. It let white people off the hook, it created an intellectual distance from actual pain, and for me, ironically, it just affirmed what I always felt about most white people: they are even more callous amongst themselves, actually, than with me.
Brian Alessandro gets dangerous because he dares to reveal depth in characters who may be cruel or nasty — but he is not doing it to “understand” them as much as he doing it to state what he feels are facts about our life: despicable people live around us, yes, and they do have souls…but that is what prompts us to ask what is important to us, how much of society is bent or compliant to patriarchy, warped racial and gender views, demeaning of sex in all its forms and willfully enabling the rote pathological behavior of masculinity – toxic or otherwise – and what it “should” mean. Lorna crystallizes much of this and perhaps that is where the book’s political and social ills are actually clearest. Lorna could actually understand a Donald Trump and even make a case for him. Trump is a human being, folks. That alone should tell you something.
But decide for yourself. A plot synopsis would be irrelevant and insulting to a book that operates in both the imagination and the tactile world. The style of the writing is the meaning and one needs read a mere five pages of any part to get a sense of the power, humor, and ferociousness of good writing.
Some readers may wonder if the characters “change,” do they get “saved,” do they “see the light”?
Shakespeare died in 1616. Did his plays give any consciousness and empathy to his own culture? Did he make men, women, children, whomever – more sensitive? No. Quite the opposite, you could argue. The international prism (and prison!) of Capitalism cast its net, giving us racism and the formal end of humanity (the end of humanity is not going to be a nuclear holocaust, it was already a holocaust over the Atlantic ocean hundreds of years ago. Just ask the sharks!)– a mere three years later in 1619 when the Dutch first brought African slaves to North American soil. Three years after Old Willy died, the power of his words instigated everything he may been against.
Besides the bible, I am sure Shakespeare’s words were read by many slave traders. The same way Nazis read Rilke. Or worse, privately whistling the melodies of Mendelssohn or Mahler as they maimed the descendants of those artists.
Where’s the light here, attained?
If art had the power to imbue empathy in a revolutionary way, such human nightmares could never occur. But art unfortunately cannot do that. It is mysterious, but it’s not alchemy. And it’s not about casting a spell as it is about mesmerizing the human heart, the human mind. The best we can hope for is to be reminded of our own humanity. Art doesn’t change the world. It changes your relationship with the world. And occasionally can prompt us to take action. Poetry unfortunately has inspired man to rape and pillage. It also has inspired man to help each other, be kinder, and fight for the underdog.
Some people firmly believe art should provide empathy. When I was younger I did as well and was terrified when I realized it couldn’t. I feel art, ultimately, should shake your core. I felt absolutely no empathy except for the world at large after reading Performer Non Grata. The “world” that must endure these awful people.
I felt for myself. Because I must endure these atrocious characters from the novel — in our society. And sometimes tolerate them if I want to eat. Life is hard. So is the book. But, like most things that matter, that’s what makes it so special. Art is not for the weak. Neither is Brian Alessandro’s writing.
I am thrilled that Rebel Satori Press’ new book FEVER SPORES: THE QUEER RECLAMATION OF WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS edited by Brian Alessandro and Tom Cardamone has become a best-seller and includes my own essay on Burroughs and reflections on his impact on me as an artist, a writer, Black cis-straight man – who, as an outsider myself, identifies with the radicalism of Queer outlaws like him.
Rebel Satori Press’ new book, FEVER SPORES, features essays & conversations on William S. Burroughs by luminaries and independent authors alike
Ever controversial, the book seeks to re-contextualize the man, his guns, his history, his homosexuality, his relationship to women, transgressive ideas and writings – within the 21st century mainstream LBGTQ community and their new Queer outliers. Featuring interviews with luminaries such as David Cronenberg to Blondie to Samuel Delaney and urgent essays from writers such as Laura Schleifer, Jason Napoli Brooks, Michael Carrol, and Charlie Vazquez, FEVER SPORES will not disappoint and it opens new doors into new perceptions on Burroughs’ legacy and profound influence.
My essay on Burroughs explores the notion of words, oppression, the terror of language, addiction and the nature of art itself
The spiritual ascent in the final moments of As an Act of Protest
Though the film was made in 2001 and scrutinizes the racial profiling and police brutality in New York City under Giuliani’s draconian reign, “As an Act of Protest” has never been more urgent than now. I approach this review—a defense born of moral outrage, really—not as a film critic, but as a fellow filmmaker and novelist. Often, it takes an artist to recognize an artist, talent to identify talent.
To contextualize, the film makes almost all contemporary activism and progressive finger-wagging histrionics feel like a disingenuous kindergarten special, a halfhearted performance staged by people who stand for nothing, driven by questionable motives.
The story centers on Abner, imbued with a glorious righteous indignation by writer-director Dennis Leroy Kangalee, who runs a Black theater group, and his actor Cairo Medina, Che Ayende in a turn that manages both a visceral nerviness and a cerebral intensity. Though Abner floats throughout the film like a haunted, haunting spirit, the spiritual journey—and crisis—is Cairo’s. He must cope with the unjust, criminal murder of a loved one at the hands of the NYPD as he reconciles his passion for expression through art or, failing that, a descent into violent vengeance. Ayende’s work here is unnerving, spellbinding, and ultimately heartbreaking. He is a force of brooding expression, tension, and apoplectic eruptions. He is compelling when silent and striking when in a verbose fury.
The acting is so raw, immediate, and naturalistic it seems more than improvised—it feels as though we’re watching real intimate connections being worked out. And yet, there is a fascinating formalism at play here. Rarely do we find actors who can balance with such adeptness the natural with the formal. The cinema of Cassavetes comes to mind. The theater of Baraka and Genet do, too. Kangalee clearly knows his film and theater history and understands where he fits in the ever-shifting canon. His marriage of forms and sensibilities is thoughtful; he assiduously toils toward excavating a new understanding of human behavior.
We have seen countless movies that celebrate straight white men at breaking points with society. Michael Douglas in Falling Down. Edward Norton in Fight Club. Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. Rarely are black men granted the same luxury of being enraged with the world and acting on their anger. And if we’re being honest, it is black men—especially black men in America—who have the greatest right to be in a, as Baldwin put it, “state of rage, almost all the time.”
The ruminations on the nature of theater, and especially the need for a Black theater, run deep and into enlightening spaces. Theatre of the Absurd is thought of when considering the film on a meta level—the way Black people are mistreated in America is in and of itself absurd. Cruel and unfair to an absurd degree. Kangalee knows this and his emphasis on theater suits such thematic meditations.
Kangalee, the writer, is relentless in his examinations and excoriations. He demands you pay attention and endure the rhythmic chaos and existential horrors he dissects, those dehumanizing atrocities experienced daily by black men and women. Kangalee, the director, doesn’t let up, either. He insists you confront the gruesome truth and either flee or find deep mettle to withstand the revelation of your complicity. Kangalee, the actor, serves as an effective provocateur, a missile in human trappings sent deep into the heart of the matter. Unlike too many current filmmakers who claim to make “message movies” or “take stands” against injustice and the establishment, Kangalee actually does. And he does so poetically, unapologetically, and with an authenticity that shames.
Speller Street Films has done an admirable job remastering the cult film that has screened at universities across the United States and in Europe, however, it is unconscionable that As an Act of Protest has struggled for nearly two decades to land distribution. I can only blame the American (mainly white) critical establishment for not championing it, instead doing the bidding of the film industry—yes, both the “independent” film scene and Hollywood. The fear, the lack of imagination and depth, and the outright racism that has kept the film from garnering a wider audience is unforgivable. The hypocrisy of the independent film scene is apparent. They speciously declare their allegiance to emerging artists, taking “risks” with “edgy” fare, seeing more deeply than the big wig studio executives, eschewing commercial formula, and promoting marginalized voices. This is all nonsense, though. They’re just better at hiding their ugly, venal faces, faithful only to maintaining the status quo, and the rejection, indifference, and bitterness that As an Act of Protest has met with is evidence of this.
These same critics celebrate Ava Duvernay, Barry Jenkins, Spike Lee, all gifted and worthy in their own right, but also too-polite “fighters” for the cause, falling into line, protesting within acceptable lines; they stick to studio parameters, abide by white executive decree, and follow the structural playbook of formulaic moviemaking. They are using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house, which leaves nothing dismantled, in the end. The structures remain. Kangalee has no use for the master’s tools and in his gritty, obliquely stylized aesthetic uses his own tools. And his dismantling is actual, not theoretical. He has no use for levity to break tension. He doesn’t care if you’re bothered by the cacophony of actors screaming into each other’s faces for two hours. He has no use for your precious sensitivities. Why should he? He’s not trying to become anyone’s friend. He is seeking to make enduring, personal art. And he has.
In a certain, eerie sense, the detractors of As an Act of Protest mirror the racist cops, corrupt mayor, and gentrified encroachers in the film itself. They too possess a colonized entitlement, a sense that they have the license to control, own, and kill.
Having followed the underground movements of As an Act of Protest, I possess empirical knowledge of the politics surrounding the film. And of the machinations intent on derailing it. I have witnessed too many cowardly, meek “critics” and academics lazily assail the film as if it posed a threat to their existence. The Guardian’s apathetic pseudo-review and TrustMovies’ ill-informed, vindictive rant, to name but a few. The same people who claim to want revolution and fancy themselves progressives, or even radicals, for that matter, reveal themselves to be anything but—they’re comfortable bourgeoise daunted by the prospect of being discomfited. They prefer a softer, templated blend of activism, something that will go down smoothly with their lattes and Wes Anderson confectionaries. To them, activism is little more than a fashionable accessory, a cute button or hip catch phrase. As an Act of Protest is a litmus test, one to weed out the truly rebellious and throttle the frauds into retreat. It’s exhilarating to watch the assault.
Brian Alessandro currently writes literary criticism for Newsday and is a contributor at Interview Magazine. Most recently, he has adapted Edmund White’s 1982-classic A Boy’s Own Story into a graphic novel for Top Shelf Productions, which won the National Book Award in 2016 for March. His short fiction and essays have been published in Roxanne Gay’s literary journal, PANK, as well as in Crashing Cathedrals, an anthology of essays about the work of Edmund White. In 2011, Alessandro wrote and directed the feature film, Afghan Hound, which has streamed on Amazon and Netflix. In 2016, he founded The New Engagement, a literary journal that has released two print issues and eighteen online issues. His debut novel, The Unmentionable Mann, was published in 2015 and was well received by Huffington Post, The Leaf, Examiner, and excerpted in Bloom. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice and the Independent Book Publisher Association Best New Voice Award. He holds an MA in clinical psychology from Columbia University and has taught the subject at the high school and college levels for over ten years. He currently works in the mental health field.
A link to my latest essay, “The End of the Imagination” — an updated, refurbished, and almost completely re-written exploration I had begun to explore in 2016. This is an essay I am not only proud of… but, sadly, one that seems to crystallize how I feel now and how I have felt for a long time. Thank you to Brian Alessandro and Lupe Rodarte for once again having the courage to publish work that is challenging, personal, and radical.
“The critic discusses the medicine, the artist administers it. It is neither the job of the creative artist nor the creative critic to make you feel good. It is not our job to provide hope, but truth. The artist gives you truth at all costs. The critic – merely interprets and records what is before him and tries to illuminate certain things we prefer to keep in an artist’s shadow. Or his closet.
Once you have usurped true creativity with an eye towards consumerism and advertising culture you have turned your back from the North Star and have settled on the ethos of Madison Avenue. When banks become proselytizers of culture instead of the individual artist you are in a wasteland.
And wastelands are living death brought to realization by inability to imagine.”
Afghan Hound
Written & Directed by Brian Alessandro
“Afghan Hound” (2010)
A New Director has made a powerful motion picture, which is now available to audiences on Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.
Brian Alessandro’s 2010 Afghan Hound opens with a shot of garbage. An indication of the mess that slowly forms when a white American war veteran and an Afghani carpet weaver’s lives intersect. Although understandably perceived as a film about a PTSD and a Vet’s struggle to come to grips with the horror he inflicted in Afghanistan at the start of America’s invasion shortly after September 11, 2001 — the film is less a portrait of PTSD and more an illustration of the warped relationship America and historic white racism have with the Oppressed and colonized. It is set in the here and now, within the fray of the 21st century circus and the themes of white guilt, war crimes (an oxymoron if there ever was one), revenge, and punishment could be applied to just about any time period in modern man’s consciousness. Chris Leeds (Adam M. Griffith in an impressive performance) is a veteran trying to resolve and accept the horror he inflicted and experienced as a soldier in Afghanistan. He is reflective, introverted, and fragile when we meet him and yet at least he seems to be able to support himself – he’s a carpenter. And while he may not be Jewish, he is a Catholic and the suffering he must endure is rite of passage ritual into a state of grace. He is 33, like Christ was when he was crucified. Although it is not a primary aspect of the film, it is wholly un-subtle. Is Alessandro implying that Americans (i.e. “white people”) must suffer to the depths in order somehow be reborn, be cleansed, be…treated for their institutional philosophy of militancy and imperialism? Whether at home or abroad, white America has its nose in everything and dictates to everyone under the sun. Except to itself.
Enter: Zemar – spookily interpreted by Lavrenti Lopes. Zemar is the Afghanistan-American (he grew up in Flushing) who initially befriends Chris (they swap trades, Zemar teaches Chris about rug weaving, who in turn gets lessons in carpentry). Their exchange of energies and ideas is affirmative and creative as they both build things…and yet, as Zemar reminds us: “Everything begins with philosophy.” Which, of course, means that there is an inherent idea behind any organized act or decision. And how we render those actions is based on ones philosophy. It is quite clear that the director wanted it to be known that America’s treatment of “the other” and its own soldiers – is quite a conscious act.
I wrote earlier that Afghan Hound is not really about PTSD in my opinion – as that skirts the issue. It is about the recognition of guilt and admission of sin. And how a white man willingly accepts his punishment – even if only it allows him to feel something stable and “real.” This is no coincidence or something to be taken lightly. The white man – cut off from his own center, his own “soul” as it were must always go to the “natives” to feel something. He must always be led, taught, entertained, or forgiven by a person of color in order to be free of his burden, his shame. He has been going to the black man for his music for centuries now – because it enables him to feel. But what he can’t seem to do is actually forgive himself. People of color throughout the world do nothing but forgive. It’s not that the colonized don’t know who they are — it is perhaps that the colonizer doesn’t know or can’t admit who he is. And the Chris Leeds of the world wouldn’t know where or how to begin to forgive…themselves. Their world is too unstable.
In one of the film’s most genuinely moving scenes, Chris announces to his friends and family — after imploring them for their American nationalism in which he excoriates everything from the A Bomb to Britney Spears – “at least the sunset is trustworthy.” He knows it’s the only thing man can rely on, the one constant that may never change and it is an emotional sunset or sunrise that he needs, he needs something to lean against that he can rely on. Zemar becomes his sunset.
It is when Zemar begins pursuing revenge on Chris that the film takes a surrealistically absurd turn. Alessandro powerfully crafts elements of Sam Fuller and Pasolini into what emerges as a kind of delicate ‘Theater of Torture’ – all executed and inflicted by Zemar who shows himself to be quite the guerilla sadist. And this is the power of Alessandro’s directing – he expresses the terrifying fact that even the oppressed’s ability to enact a reasonable or rational act of revenge – has been corrupted!
Maya Angelou once wrote that she did not believe that blacks would treat whites the same if they were in positions of power and if their roles in western society had been reversed. She wrote this in reference to Jean Genet’s play “The Blacks” (which she appeared in originally) and while she may or may not be right, in the case of Afghan Hound – revenge is something Chris wants Zemar to have and, once again like a good sacrificial lamb – he offers himself and exposes himself to Zemar’s bizarre, yet benign, S&M fantasies (the scene where Zemar rubs his hands over Chris’ combat uniform as if to indicate the homo-eroticism of Fascist military fatigues is excellent). Zemar wants this white imperialist to suffer, to be punished, to be abused…and yet for all the debasing he does – it is Zemar who comes off appearing more warped than Chris, thereby endowing Chris with more sensitivity, almost in a strange way letting him (the white audience) off the hook, since the empathy is given more to him than to Zemar. If there is a criticism I have of Afghan Hound it is that.
Lopes bothered me half way into the film, he was too cocky and his cat like prancing was off-putting at first. I also was uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons. As an African-American, I was delighted to see another man of color play a role that was complex and off-kilter. However, the “bitchiness” of the character bothered me, and at times bordered on a strange shifty eyed Arab stereotype via Peter Lorre – and yet in the last 10 minutes of the film Lopes finds a way of redeeming Zemar – not as a person – but as a character in the film. Because no matter no matter how “true to life” some movies’ people seem – one must not forget we are watching characters. And behind every character…is a philosophy.
Griffith did well as Chris – it’s a role Viggo Mortensen would’ve craved had he been 25 years younger. Griffith is a better actor, but there were times I did not believe his brooding. It would have been even more powerful if Griffith was more like his delusional white friends and had still been PRO-America and then gradually lost himself in Zemar’s Velvet Underground revenge games – discovering his own status as a racist imperialist and as a ‘pawn in the game’ but these are minor points and only ones I speak of in order to be fair and honorable to the film. To not be tough on a tough movie would be to dishonor it. And all works of art are flawed. It’s just that there are times when the artist must speak to his fellow artist and tell him exactly how his work stirred him and what questions it prompted. That’s how we all grow. It took great courage and talent to make Afghan Hound. For all his absurd “spiritual suffering” ethos, Scorsese couldn’t do it (he lacks the courage – plus he’s too busy making sure DiCaprio is brushing his teeth or God knows what) and neither could Aronofsky or any other establishment director who supposed to be known for taking risks and being honest.
American cinema does mirror the American society in that it is a socio-pathic, self-aggrandizing world that does little to change, challenge, or reflect on our history, mores, and accepted values. For this alone, Alessandro must be commended.
Final Note: Brian Alessandro’s use of wide-angle masters and subtle shifts in acting styles (look at the white American family the movie with that of the Afghani family, even the styles – within the perceived Naturalism – is different!) is effective and bristle with tension and a strange un-reconciled understanding. I am not sure how he achieved some of the things he did (which I am grateful for) but I know his work beckons repeated viewings and I hope he is a director who will continue to make honest and penetrating films.
![Weir%20Building%201[1].jpg](https://dennisleroykangalee.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/weir20building2011.jpg)
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 
Brian Alessandro’s novel “Performer Non Grata”
“First of all bullfighting is, as somebody once said very well, indefensible and irresistible …but I’ve turned against it for very much the same reason that my father, who was a great hunter, suddenly stopped hunting he said, “I’ve killed enough animals.” I’m ashamed of myself…I’ve seen enough of those animals dead, it was…a waste…almost all Spanish intellectuals have been against bullfighting for the last 150 years…Lorca is one of the few Spanish intellectuals who ever approved of bullfighting.”
— Orson Welles, 1974
If I were teaching a class on Brian Alessandro’s literature, I’d call it:
“How Hard it is to Write and Move an Audience…With Unattractive Individuals.”
Alessandro’s follow up to the impressive The Unmentionable Mann (2015) is even more deviant, crafty, and insightful than its predecessor. His fifth novel (two previously unpublished, including Freud Droid which some avid readers lucky to get their hands on it — consider his best work and his first book, An Ego Dream Game, self-published in a limited edition in 2003) takes the gloves off completely and gathers prisoners as aggressively as it tries to shame the devil.
I admired the novel without liking a single character.
In what I felt initially had superficial similarities to a Todd Solondz film and its themes (the smug white suburban malaise, the yuppie heart of darkness, the emphatic white man’s ironic slouch towards racism or sexuality, etc.) Performer Non Grata is actually a backhanded slap at the hideous nature of white male masculinity (particularly) in all its toxic forms and incarnations (he displays the gamut’s psychosis from heterosexual to homosexual to beyond) and the violent escapades that that culture breeds. Our contempt for animals, women, and all entities that could be construed as their “others” is alarming and exquisitely detailed in this phantasmagoric book.
Centered around Risk Bonaventura, an American corporate zombie, and his deranged obsession with bullfighting and all that it implies— we are embroiled in a bizarre menage-a-trois between him, Javier his Spanish matador lover and Lorna, his wife, an academic and teacher (a character inspired by the deteriorated passion and warped ideology of none other than the disappointing Camile Paglia), Performer Non Grata is many things. But it is principally a crystallization of what has been latent in Alessandro’s entire body of work – from his novels to his plays, his film Afghan Hound, even some of his drawings – the pursuit of characters who are not particularly likeable. Especially Queer characters, that’s where his transgression lies. Javier is deeply disturbing, transmitting both homicidal and suicidal urges of the imprisoned masculine Queer; Risk and Lorna’s sociopathic son, Theo, is a graphic example of all that is terrible, coming to fruition. When you read the book, ask yourself: Which of these awful renderings could be me? The title says it all: there is no performer. There is only you.
The book is an orgy of sadism, meditations on Feminine and Masculine psychologies, the horror of rape culture, and the schadenfreude ethos of our media world and literally everything it embodies.
I could say it’s about a bullfighter, but it isn’t. And the novel in no way glorifies the atrocious act of killing a bull. It skewers the male perversion of wanting to become a bull fighter. I make this point because, unfortunately, many progressive and radical activists are losing their knack for insight and humor and are not understanding the differences between satire, irony, parody versus work that promotes violence against animals. I find it deeply disturbing that we allow Ernest Hemingway to sit comfortably on the edges of the Left because of his association with Cuba and later Castro – while not acknowledging his passionate desire to exert and romanticize aggressive male behavior, namely hunting and bullfighting. Orson Welles, in a stunning 1974 BBC interview, conceded how terribly wrong he was to have indulged in such a backward mode of thinking and behaving and he declared how sad he was that he and his ilk had participated in the murder of animals.
I could say the book is obsessed with rape but it isn’t. I could say it’s merely about toxic masculinity, but it isn’t. It transmits aspects of toxic masculinity. And it becomes increasingly the result of those toxicities, it expresses the pangs of the spoils of war.
I could say the novel seems to hold several mirrors up to the myriad of rotten pathologies in Western society but it doesn’t….at least not in a detached way. And if it doesn’t do that it’s not a mirror. However it is a reflection.
Alessandro houses a grotesque gallery of 21st century psychosis, proclivities, and behaviors— all which are vicious and antagonistic avatars, revealing the damage we endure and witness in our everyday life.
You learn a lot about a writer you like by focusing on how you approach their work. It’s unconscious of course, but it does determine a lot of how you process and inquire. If works of art are personal it’s also because we share a bit of ourselves as we interpret it.
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If Unmentionable Mann was statelier and more mainstream, Performer Non Grata is more challenging and akin to the madcap, with its gravely dark humor barbed like a wire. Unlike many writers or filmmakers who try to employ a heavy satire or understated morality (often lapsing into nihilism – a problem for White authors as it is for Black hip-hop artists ) Alessandro is not trying to flex his “awareness” or wink at the problems of the white bourgeoisie or his working-stiff brethren, somehow desperate to always make a clever point at how moribund their culture is. Alessandro actually cares about his characters, despite how atrocious they are. Most artists nowadays and since the New Millennium have derogated themselves to cynicism, hipster irony, and the celebration of their worthlessness— as opposed to seriously criticizing it. The way most White people shrug their shoulders when confronted with changing the racist mores of their culture or how most men (gay or straight) recede like a middle-aged man’s hairline – when confronted with challenging other men on the oppression inflicted on women – our mothers, sisters, daughters, lovers, friends, aunts, teachers, co-workers, etc. – and the bestiality committed on our children’s minds.
When satire became smug parody, social commentary loses its way. An early critical observation I encountered with other readers or critics was that perhaps Alessandro’s characters were too venal, not aware enough of their harm to themselves and particularly to their victims, the people they inflict physical and psychological violence upon. But I came away feeling that was his point. To have these characters care would be dishonest. True caring is in the writing of the book. The characters are just that: characters. And so are most people.
Burroughs, Genet haunt the book marginally – but I would actually say the Rabelaisian spirit in the book is found through the alienated great grandchildren of Marshall McLuhan: abandoned and angry in this digital Sahara we are in – clamoring through the character of Theo, who asserts his power in the book (and over the reader) by his demented depictions that he wields through the power of YouTube, the young sociopath exceeding what McLuhan imagined, we’ve divorced ourselves through technology whilst creating a “global village,” but have made that community one that is steeped in the demonic nature of defiling and exploiting. A literal “futurist” notion of how to push the horror of rape. Theo makes YouTube scary in a very clear, direct, and immediate way. I am glad I don’t have children.
Alessandro’s proclivity for crafting an enjoyable reading experience about unlikable characters, is a conscious maintenance of art. Employing caricature, even profane exaggeration, he paints on his canvas in a myriad of ways – literary characters—not ersatz “real” people. I am not sure when audiences lost touch with characters VS “real” people and began to foolishly and erroneously judge dramatic art based on its human characters’ verisimilitude as “actual” persons living next door. Art is about the insides not “the next door.” If art does actually teach, then you learn from characters – not actual people.
When actors do it, principally in movies, it tells you more about yourself than about them. We like “the bad guy” in movies for example because he may be what most people actually want to be. There’s a strange notion that the more pitched, strained, or exaggerated an actor’s performance or mannerisms – the less human they are. The West has been categorically labeling behaviors and assigning pathologies based on our physical behavior and how we appear for at least the past five hundred years and no one finds it bizarre that our schools, teachers, critics have a nasty desire to keep ‘human reality’ at a base level, never rising above a Library tone of voice, never acknowledging the horror of civilization or the grandeur of opera in our lives.
In his excellent article entitled “Considering a Place in Fiction for Badly Behaved Queers” for the Gay & Lesbian Review, Alessandro expounds on this and specifically how it pertains to the presentation of Queer characters in novels and movies. The biggest misconception is that “reality” is truth. Where in fact we all know the reverse is the truth. And while it is true that most “lessons,” emotional impacts and even lingering thoughts are mainly imbued through the technique of “bad” characters, Black, Queer, and Women artists have to always mine the impositions of their double-consciousness when presenting behaviors because it is usually members of the oppressed class that do battle with the “cops in the head” when attempting to reveal the ugly side of any milieu, whether it’s real or completely made-up. It’s one thing for the stupid critic to attack you, a whole other thing when it’s a member of your own tribe.
The characters, even when slightly alien, are all manifestations of archetypes in one way or another, but Lorna and Theo reveal something else behind the mask. They are contemptuous in ways that are more insidious than the husband and father. Maybe it’s because they are, too, results of these Risks in life. When you read the book, you may pay attention to this dynamic. Alessandro does a superb job spinning the cobweb amidst this trio, an admirable quality in prose and one that is particularly cinematic.
While Risk felt easy enough for me to critique because of my own innate dislike (and disinterest) for such figures, it’s his freaky wife and son that disgusted me so — and upon which the novel’s emotional elements hinge on. Lorna and Theo would be more traditionally linked to the underarm of patriarchy, as victims of course. And they are, as well as being willing participants in the oppressive and hateful matrix known as capitalism. Alessandro makes them as ugly, if not more so, than the appalling weak Risk and the demented Javier, the toxic male embodiments, and their Queer applications. If the men were the cause, the women and children are the symptoms (Lorna’s thesis on rape is absolutely appalling and probably one of the best modern excoriations of the empathic losses we seem to be gaining every single day in the United States alone ). Upon my third reading, I was very excited how the novel seamlessly unfolds due to the character’s psychology and behavior. That may sound obvious, but it’s not. Some great novels are steeped in “telling a story,” versus character portraits. One way isn’t better than the other, the impact a writer makes is owning up to their strengths and not trying to con us. Alessandro is interested in psychology, he has a Master’s degree in it. And he applies that to character construction, not plot ornamentation.
I maintain if we reduce Shakespeare to plot — there’s nothing there. Shakespeare is about everything else. He exists in HOW and WHAT. Not the “meanings” or plot. And certainly not in appealing to audiences who want to be flattered. If you ever meet a Lady MacBeth or Richard III — run. Because they will not be anything remotely as fascinating as Shakespeare’s creations.
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Creations. This is where Brian Alessandro thrives: where he lets loose. I like his anarchic humor and his uniquely “patrician punk” approach to writing and I hope he takes it further. For its all HIM. And in his world he has a lot to share about the society we participate in. Edmund White astutely declared the book as “speaking to our crazy times.” It’s not reflective of the times. It is the times. Within the novel, there’s nothing sacred (except annihilation) and nothing pure (except self-hatred, compliance to imperialist cruelty) and the heartbeat of the book seems crunched in and viperous and reaching out through its tentacles of social media and the internet. Kubrick gives you HAL. Alessandro gives you Theo. Pay attention, this character will have more gravity in the years to come. For the sociopathy of youth is the future of the novel and the world. Alessandro may in fact be linked to Kubrick’s clinical beliefs: man is fixed. He won’t change, possibly can’t – ever. He just develops…and usually that means his ability to hate, inflict pain, destroy just becomes more sophisticated. Anthony Burgess famously criticized Kubrick’s cinematic vision of Alex, his creation in his novel Clockwork Orange. Burgess felt that post 1968 Americans want (need?) to acknowledge that there is no hope, whilst Burgess himself was convinced change is always possible. It certainly is a moral choice how we decide to leave our characters. Do they learn lessons, is there a consciousness that gets expanded? Is there an empathy that gets embraced? (Funny enough, these questions rarely get specifically oriented. Gender, sex, identity aside – Native Americans/Indigenous and Blacks have a far more complex, darker, and brighter notion of “hope” than any white man could conceive. Except for Beckett or Kafka. Or even Burroughs, who’d probably state that if he had hope, he wouldn’t be a writer.)
Something I was struck by and never had considered after first reading was how much gay men’s struggles with masculinity are not just about seeking approval from other men in the way that hetero men do, but also in the ways that hetero women seek male attention/approval of their femininity. While I knew that was the case in terms of physique. Speaking with the novel’s editor, Laura Schleifer, I don’t think I quite realized that “performative/ritualistic acts of masculinity like bullfighting might be done by the male gays for the male gaze of the male gays.” It was something of a revelation to me when she announced this.
I refer to filmmaking or avatars of ‘smart’ independent cinema to broach the problem and connection I see inherent in both literature and movies: there’s a LOT of criticism of everything, facts even, tons of information but very little about life. And very little expression from a place of either genuine fear or outrage. The white nihilist filmmakers I grew up with like Todd Solondz and Neil LaBute did a lot of damage to my generation. It let white people off the hook, it created an intellectual distance from actual pain, and for me, ironically, it just affirmed what I always felt about most white people: they are even more callous amongst themselves, actually, than with me.
Brian Alessandro gets dangerous because he dares to reveal depth in characters who may be cruel or nasty — but he is not doing it to “understand” them as much as he doing it to state what he feels are facts about our life: despicable people live around us, yes, and they do have souls…but that is what prompts us to ask what is important to us, how much of society is bent or compliant to patriarchy, warped racial and gender views, demeaning of sex in all its forms and willfully enabling the rote pathological behavior of masculinity – toxic or otherwise – and what it “should” mean. Lorna crystallizes much of this and perhaps that is where the book’s political and social ills are actually clearest. Lorna could actually understand a Donald Trump and even make a case for him. Trump is a human being, folks. That alone should tell you something.
But decide for yourself. A plot synopsis would be irrelevant and insulting to a book that operates in both the imagination and the tactile world. The style of the writing is the meaning and one needs read a mere five pages of any part to get a sense of the power, humor, and ferociousness of good writing.
Some readers may wonder if the characters “change,” do they get “saved,” do they “see the light”?
Shakespeare died in 1616. Did his plays give any consciousness and empathy to his own culture? Did he make men, women, children, whomever – more sensitive? No. Quite the opposite, you could argue. The international prism (and prison!) of Capitalism cast its net, giving us racism and the formal end of humanity (the end of humanity is not going to be a nuclear holocaust, it was already a holocaust over the Atlantic ocean hundreds of years ago. Just ask the sharks!)– a mere three years later in 1619 when the Dutch first brought African slaves to North American soil. Three years after Old Willy died, the power of his words instigated everything he may been against.
Besides the bible, I am sure Shakespeare’s words were read by many slave traders. The same way Nazis read Rilke. Or worse, privately whistling the melodies of Mendelssohn or Mahler as they maimed the descendants of those artists.
Where’s the light here, attained?
If art had the power to imbue empathy in a revolutionary way, such human nightmares could never occur. But art unfortunately cannot do that. It is mysterious, but it’s not alchemy. And it’s not about casting a spell as it is about mesmerizing the human heart, the human mind. The best we can hope for is to be reminded of our own humanity. Art doesn’t change the world. It changes your relationship with the world. And occasionally can prompt us to take action. Poetry unfortunately has inspired man to rape and pillage. It also has inspired man to help each other, be kinder, and fight for the underdog.
Some people firmly believe art should provide empathy. When I was younger I did as well and was terrified when I realized it couldn’t. I feel art, ultimately, should shake your core. I felt absolutely no empathy except for the world at large after reading Performer Non Grata. The “world” that must endure these awful people.
I felt for myself. Because I must endure these atrocious characters from the novel — in our society. And sometimes tolerate them if I want to eat. Life is hard. So is the book. But, like most things that matter, that’s what makes it so special. Art is not for the weak. Neither is Brian Alessandro’s writing.
Performer Non Grata is published by Rebel Satori Press, who published the wonderful Fever Spore: The Queer Reclamation of William S. Burroughs, edited by Tom Cardamone and Brian Alessandro in 2022.
Dennis LeRoy Kangalee
Jackson Heights, NY
April 30, 2023
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