The Rotowhirl - Laurie Anderson

Around 1978, I met the comedian, Andy Kaufmann, and he was performing this

avant-garde Elvis act in a club in Queens.

The performance started with Andy

playing the bongos and, for some unknown reason, sobbing

We became friends, and I acted as Andy’s straight man in clubs and field trips.

At the Improv in New York, Andy would begin his show by insulting women and

saying «I won’t respect them until one of them comes up here and wrestles me

down.»

This was supposed to be my job

I sat in the club drinking whiskeys trying to get up the nerve.

In the meantime

I was also supposed to be heckling him, and after three whiskeys I managed to

get pretty abusive.

Wrestling him down though was really hard because Andy

really fought

On our field trips we would go to Coney Island to try out some of Andy’s

theories on cutting-edge comedy.

We’d stand around the «test your strength»

games, the one with the big sledgehammer and the bell, and Andy would make fun

of all the guys who were swinging away

And I was supposed to beg him for one of the huge stuffed bunnies: «Oh Andy Honey, please get me a bunny, please, please."Finally Andy would step

up to the big thermometer and take a swing.

The indicator would rise a few

inches and «Try again, weakling!»

would flash.

At this point Andy would start

yelling that the game was rigged and demanding to see the manager

We also went at the rotowhirl, the ride that plasters everyone against the

walls of a spinning cylinder and stretches their bodies into Dopplered blobs.

Before the ride actually starts, there are a couple of awkward minutes while

the attendant checks the motor and the riders, bound head and foot,

stare at each other

This was the moment that Andy seized.

He would start by looking around in a

panic, and then he would start to cry «I don’t wanna be on this ride!

I’ve changed my mind — we’re all gonna die!»

The other riders would look

around self-consciously.

Should they help?

He would then begin to sob

uncontrollably

I loved Andy.

He would come over to my house and read from a novel he was

writing;

he would read all night.

And I don’t know if any of this book was ever

even published

I have never been one to hope that Elvis is still hanging around somewhere,

hiding, but I will probably always expect to see Andy reappear… someday