writing

Baggage

My latest book, Baggage, Tales from A Fully Packed Life was published.

There is absolutely no logical reason why I am here. The life trajectory my nationality and class and circumstances portended for me was not even remotely close to the one I now navigate. But logic is a science and living is an art.

The release I felt in writing my first memoir, Not My Father’s Son, was matched only by how my speaking out empowered so many to engage with their own trauma. I was reminded of the power of my words and the absolute duty of authenticity.

But...

No one ever fully recovers from their past. There is no cure for it. You just learn to manage and prioritize it. I believe the second you feel you have triumphed or overcome something – an abuse, an injury to the body or the mind, an addiction, a character flaw, a habit, a person – you have merely decided to stop being vigilant and embraced denial as your modus operandi. And that’s what this book is about, and for: to remind you not to buy into the Hollywood ending.

Ironically maybe, much of Baggage chronicles my life in Hollywood and how, since I recovered from a nervous breakdown at 28, work has repeatedly whisked me away from personal calamities to sets and stages around the world. It is also about marriage(s): starting with the break-up of my first (to a woman) and ending with the ascension to my second (to a man), with many kissed toads in between! But in everything, each failed relationship or encounter with a legend (Liza! X Men! GoreVidal! Kubrick! Spice Girls!), in every bad decision or moment of sensual joy I have endeavored to show what I have learned and how I’ve become who I am today: a happy, flawed, vulnerable, fearless middle-aged man, with a lot of baggage.

Here’s a clip of me reading from the audiobook

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Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age

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I premiered my new cabaret show in Adelaide, Australia on the closing night of the cabaret festival there. I next performed it at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Here’s the blurb from the Edinburgh International Festival brochure about it:

What exactly is acting your age? And who decides? These are the questions Alan Cumming has been grappling with for a very long time.

‘I’m constantly told, even now in my sixth decade, that I am childlike or puckish, and yet at the same time I’m also called a silver fox and a daddy,’ he says. ‘I think we all get really mixed messages about ageing. We’re told to worship at the fountain of youth, to do everything we can to our bodies and our minds to stay young, yet we bandy around pejoratives like “grow up” or “act your age”, even that we’re “mutton dressed as lamb”.’

Cumming, at fifty-six, is enjoying himself. ‘I feel I’m still at an age where I can dance till dawn, but also be able to dole out some wisdom to my fellow revellers! Wisdom is just being able to recognise the repeating patterns that emerge as you get older and maybe deciding to react to them differently. It’s just the same show with different costumes.’

In Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, he covers all the bases: sex, death and bacchanalia, with a set list as eclectic as the man himself. Songs from Cabaret authors[LA1]  John Kander and Fred Ebb blend with contemporary favourites and even a self-penned paean against plastic surgery. ‘I am literally the only person on American TV who has not had Botox!’ he quips. He also discusses the effects of gravity, the time the mum from The Brady Bunch punched him in the stomach and what his dog taught him about the quality of life.

 

“In the underpopulated arena of male cabaret singers, Mr. Cumming may be the only one with the talent and drive to change its direction.” The New York Times

 “So hilarious, flirty and gorgeously filthy that it's hard to decide if you want him as a new best friend or a lover.” Sydney Morning Herald

 “The androgynous imp is both quiet and uproarious, adorable and sensual, flippant and emotional, otherworldly and inviting...this is precisely why he's an icon to behold - he is unapologetically himself, and with a talent like that, he has no need to apologize.” Billboard

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Och and Oy!

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Ari Shapiro and I, accompanied by Henry Koperski, went back on the road again with our ‘considered cabaret’ We even caught Covid! We had shows in Kennebunkport, the Ravinia Festival Chicago, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Portland, Boston.