Eric Bogosian
Introduction to Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll
January 22, 2010.
According to myth, Alan freed, a New York deejay, coined the term “rock and roll”. But Freed did more than name a phenomenon and introduce it to millions. He also managed to be the center of a scandal, ruin his life with booze and die young. He was rock and roll incarnate.
The phrase “sex, drugs, rock and roll” has been tattooed on my life for the past twenty five years. In fact for a long time I thought “sex, drugs, rock and roll” was life itself. Anyone not moving at 90 mph with the music blasting was not alive. If you didn’t rock, you were dead.
In fact, it’s been the other way around. Drugs and AIDS have killed many people, many friends. The phrase “sex, drugs, rock and roll” doesn’t have the same party feeling it had 15 years ago. At times in evokes a danse macabre.
And yet, my whole life and art have marched to the rock beat. The best in life is energetic, free, and antagonistic. If you don’t go all the way, it’s not worth going. My way of thinking was shaped by Dylan and Hendrix and Lennon and Morrison and the rest of the Saints of the Church of Rock twenty years ago, and I am a true believer. I stand by the idealism of rock and roll; I don’t think it is something I will outgrow.
And yet...rock is offensive too: the macho rock stars gripping their phallic guitars and microphones, the groupies, the piles of money, the greed of promoters and producers, the waste and the wasted, the hypocrisy.
And the house of philosophy can be almost ridiculous: “Tune in, turn on, drop out.” “I f it feels good, do it.” “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” “Wanna die before I get old.”
One day I put on a shirt with Che Guevara on it. The next day I put on a shirt with the slogan “Stoned Again”!
I’ve spent most of my life stuck between idealism and hedonism, between selfishness and selflessness, between love and sex, between chaos and clarity.
Today, in 1991, the question is: how can I be irresponsible and the same time I’m being responsible? Being energetic and radical is wonderful; but if I’m nothing more, I’m a child. A responsible life is more than bumper stickers, T-shirts with slogans on them and benefit concerts. Social concerns voiced over and over again become hollow when they don’t initiate real action.
So I think: “I’m getting older-of course I’m going to be thinking more conservatively...”
But that’s bullshit. There’s no reason why getting older has anything to do with becoming more conservative. It’s more like my brain is finally clearing up the morning after a big party. I can see things don’t make sense. And I’m not just “talkin’ ‘bout my generation” I’m talking about being American.
America is the land of overconsumption that loves to cry for the less fortunate of the world. America wants to be the strongest warrior and the ultimate peacemaker. America wants to live in piggish splendor and be ecologically responsible. America wants to have the highest principles but win the popularity contest. America loves itself and loves to beat itself up. America is schizoid.
Our highest moral values are repeated over and over again as messages in the mass media chorus. But we mock these values, whether they be charity or truth or love or even cleanliness. Benefit concerts are sponsored by beer companies. Our President knows it’s not what he says that counts but how he looks saying it. A free press is poisoned by pornography. We carefully recycle our cans and bottles, ignoring the acid skies and oil- slick shores.
As a nation we sit at a huge rock concert, singing along to some well-known anthem of cloying sentiment. We love the feeling, the togetherness, the righteousness of the cause. As we watch the evening news or read the daily tabloids, we are shocked together, we are pleased together, we are entertained together, we are saddened together. Unfortunately, when the concert’s over, we get back in our cars, drive home and go to bed. It’s only rock and roll.
The urge to be everything at once, to be everywhere at once, to feel everything at once, and to do it as one monolithic group lays the foundation for a nation’s neurosis. It’s the point of view of a child. It is the point of view of the rock culture on which I grew up. It is my point of view.
This conflict has infected every area of my life. My own need to “do the right thing” as a friend, as a parent, as an artist, as a lover, and as a citizen battles my need to be a big baby. The result is paralysis with a coating of guilt.
I write about those things I can’t figure out. The monologues in Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll are my open meditation on the conflicts in my life. They are an attempt to take the nasty sides of myself and put them out there for everyone to see.
My solos work off the attitudes that drive me. These attitudes are hard for me to explore. I uproot them and turn them over as devils advocate. I take a good look at myself by grabbing the disturbing traits and personifying them in a character. Live performance in front of an audience charges up the examination, raises the stakes. Then I slam one character up against the next and hope that some kind of meditation will evolve. Provocation in the guise of a good time.
I could have titles the show Conflicts and Mediations on My State of Mind in America in 1990. But then the theater would have remained empty. You wouldn’t have picked up this book. Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll is a provocative title. It promises fun and excitement. We all want satisfaction. There’s also the dark side. I hope you enjoy it.
If you are in the United States, you can watch Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll on Hulu.
