Memoir Mondays: Ft. Lola Kirke

My Blue Heaven

Dear Reader,

To start 2022 with a bang, I have this killer memoir by actress and musician Lola Kirke for you! The first time we met was in a bathroom stall backstage where she asked to join me in the cubicle while introducing herself, saying what a great musician I was. I knew I loved her immediately while we pee’d in front of each other carrying on conversation. Usually people commented on what I wore, not my talents and it meant a lot to be recognised for that.

I have an image of her that is seared into my mind -wearing the baggy brown K-Spa uniform they hand out, with her hair in a towel turban while we ate fermented Korean food from a metal tray. In that moment I kind of imagined what it would be like to be in prison with her -terrible fun and total trouble. I imagine her sneaking me a cigarette or some candy from under the mattress. She exudes cool. She’s the kind of woman I’d probably flip for.

She asked me to write a song with her for her forthcoming album Lady for Sale a little over a year ago. I hadn’t written for anyone but myself for a few years and was honestly filled with imposter syndrome. When she rang it flowed completely effortlessly -something about her is just easy. Anyway, it’s a fucking stone cold classic called Better Than Any Drug and you can watch the video here:

I know you will love this and her brilliant memoir below.

Yours Always,

Holiday Sidewinder

---

My Blue Heaven

By Lola Kirke

The best part about ballet was the vending machine in the lobby. It had chocolate milk, the Hershey kind, and I liked this.

I had only wanted to do ballet because of my older sister. What I didn’t realise was that she only did it because being a dancer was apparently a wonderful cover for an eating disorder. Daily, I witnessed her brute struggle to do a thousand crunches, as I sucked secretly on sugar cubes stolen from the pantry. Her eyes would glaze over with determination while she counted ascending numbers to herself breathlessly. I could sense her pain, which should have made me happy -she was a rotten bully- but instead the whole thing made me kind of embarrassed for her. I didn’t like seeing her so desperate. I preferred her repugnant and in charge.

So I danced for a while and with no improvement. When our mother learned I spent most of the classes conjuring up mysterious health conditions so I could sit down, I was forced to shift my focus.

My sister’s friend was an actress and had already been in several films with stars like Tobey Maguire. In one movie, after he rejects her, she slaps her own face repeatedly saying “I hate you” over and over again in the mirror. Acting seemed like a good way to get attention for just being emotional instead of actually doing things. I knew I would be good at it.

I was enrolled in the SoHo Child Actor’s Studio which has no affiliation with the renowned Actor’s Studio but was in a studio apartment. The teacher was Dina. She shared the place with her boyfriend, who I miraculously never saw, even though their bedroom was only separated from the rest of the house by a hippie looking sheet. Beyond a dated looking headshot from the 1980s and a last name that was almost the same as a famous director, Dina really didn’t have any credentials. Still, my mother entrusted me to her every Saturday from 9 to 1. Mostly, we would do plays that were thinly veiled adaptations of famous movies. In Murder By Bequest, a piece that was essentially a scene for scene copy of a popular Agatha Christie story, I played Methany Vixen.

Methany was a hussy which meant I got to wear a lot of Dina’s clothes and make-up. Dina was very thin and wore high heels all the time, even though she made us take off our shoes cause she’d just redone her floors. Mostly her footwear was open toed and you could see her chipped metallic nail polish. Her jeans were low wasted and she favored bedazzled, low cut tank tops. I wished my mom would dress like her because she was so pretty. I loved her. Whenever she talked about successful alumna of her school booking a commercial or what not my face would redden, the way it does now when I learn literally anyone I am remotely attracted to is married and not to me.

One day, as she was pressing a fake nail onto my thumb, she asked if I wanted to be a professional actress.

“Of course,” I answered, almost before she could finish her question. “But I’d have to ask my mother.”

“Okay. Ask her. I could be your manager.”

By the time she’d finished her sentence, I’d all but hired a personal assistant and quit elementary school. When all the other kids were slipping back into their slip-on shoes, I’d be lounging conspicuously on Dina’s futon, waiting for them to ask me what I was doing. “Oh, nothing.” I’d lilt. “Just working on my contemporary monolog.”

The one she’d selected was from a Tennessee Williams one act. I was too young to read the actual play, but she cobbled together a little speech for me that began with me pretending to walk on train tracks. She organized two narrow piles of books on the ground and told me to balance between them. She said to imagine there was fire on either side of the books and if I fell, I’d die. Then she told me to do a Southern accent.

“Hi! I’m Willie,” I yelled to no one in particular, clutching a stinking cloth doll that was my prop. “Crazy Doll’s hair needs washing.” I went on to talk about how I ate food out of a dumpster and went on dates with a “sup’rintendent!” cause my sister Alva was dead from some kind of infection and how I’d taken on her all beau and then something about Camille. By this point I’d be very emotional and I’d sing you’re the only star in my blue heaven to a vague melody while staring into my doll’s remaining eye. Then I would scream “Not even a goddamn victrola!” and begin to cry.

I did the speech for whoever would listen. My mother loved it. My best friend said I should have an Oscar. I practiced and practiced until the day came to do it for a professional agent.

Esther was the first adult I’d ever met who worked with children but didn’t smile. She was also the only adult I’d ever met who just had one hand. She his the nub behind her back, as if the force of her denial would wipe her handlessness from my consciousness. When I finished my performance, she handed over a little piece of paper, the size of a fortune from a fortune cookie. It had the agency’s name on it. “Welcome,” she said, as though she were saying “go away.”

That week I had my photo taken by a professional photographer. I was told to wear black and hang off random city scaffoldings appearing hurt, stoic, and employable. We xeroxed the winning picture with the little piece of paper glues on the bottom, so the name of the agency appeared on my headshot. I stapled my resume to the back of 80 or so of them. Mitsy told me to fill it out with made up jobs. I named my fake characters things like “Jancy” and “Water Gun Girl” and listed my spacial talents as riding horses, playing saxophone, speaking latin. I lied about my height and weight. I was a real actress.

I never got any jobs, though I did make it to LA once for a screen test a couple years later. Soon after, I quit. I hadn’t seen Dina in years, nor had I even really thought about her until a few days ago, when I happened upon a teleplay of the one act my monolog was from. It was from the fifties and melodramatic as hell, which makes sense because it’s about a twelve year old who’s orphaned, homeless and a prostitute. But the little girl in the production is electric and sad and when she sings you’re the only star in my blue heaven, it feels so real that you think she must have had a sister, too. And she must have watched that sister hate herself tirelessly, while she pleaded “I love you more than you’ll ever know,” without words, from across their wide shared room.