me & andre agassi

in which the next Rockwood concert is FRIDAY NIGHT, and spirits come in many forms

Hey Hartlist,

Ok just to be clear: I do not know the man personally, I do not follow sportsball of any kind that isn’t coached by Jason Sudeikis in character, and I actually had to look up the spelling of his last name.

But he likes (liked?) my songs.

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JUST THE GIGS

FRIDAY 3/31, 7PM Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 - 185 Orchard NYC
TICKETS HERE OR CASH AT DOOR

FRIDAY 4/28, 7PM Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 - 185 Orchard NYC
TICKETS HERE OR CASH AT DOOR

MAY 5-7, How to Read Tarot Cards @ The Cell Theatre - details forthcoming

FROM THE CHRYSALIS

I am never the one who sees the ghost.

I mean this literally. Twice in my life I have actually been in the room when someone else Saw Dead People, and both times I was looking the other way. Once, it was onstage at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in DC. I was busy (I guess) Acting downstage when long-dead Mrs. Folger crossed upstage in front of my castmate. (The Theatre said this happens a lot.) The other time, I was in a car with my sister and a friend, zooming along in companionable silence when they both simultaneously yelped. A man had walked into the bright afternoon traffic… and then disappeared. They both saw him. I was in the backseat, rummaging on the floor for snacks. Such is life.

I told a friend about this the other night and she said probably those visitations just weren’t meant for me.

I have the same issue with celebrities.

( They’re kind of similar, right? Unlike Us, otherworldly, rare…?)

I am never the one who sees the Famous Person. It’s hopeless and I’ve resigned myself to it. It’s only ever after the moment passes that someone elbows me and whispers Did you see __??? followed usually by How could you not have __? when it turns out they were right next to me, or I’d been actually talking to them. (Sorry, James Taylor.)

There have been two exceptions to my oblivion. One is that time I shared an elevator with Alan Rickman (squee).

The other is Andre Agassi.

But I didn’t even see him the first time.

THE FIRST TIME
It was the year Hamana Hamana and I was about to play my Second Real Gig Ever with my First Band Ever, the Rebecca Hart Project. We had come down to NYC from RI to play the Lion’s Den, a rock club that doesn’t exist anymore, on Sullivan Street. We had been (kind of) big fish up in Providence and were excited to take our show on the road. This gig, in my memory, is packed. Which astounds me now, because I’m pretty sure the extent of our ‘promotion’ at the time was Calling That One Guy Mike Knows. (And my mom.)

It was probably something like 11PM on a Thursday, a very cool time at which I used to enjoy performing. We were bustling around, yelling over preshow music, ready to Rock. As I bounced up onto the stage I became aware of a flurry of whispers and some vigorous nodding in the direction of the bar. The name brooke shields was uttered, along with another name, her husband, and our keyboard player had a big smile on his face and everything seemed to feel a little more Fancy. I looked for Brooke but of course didn’t see her and then I just gave up and played the set. After, it was somehow conveyed to me (by the sound guy?) that both Brooke and Andre (He’s a Very Famous Tennis Player, Rebecca ) had liked it and stayed the whole time.
I do have a dim memory of a bald guy going “Whoo!” but I don’t know if that’s real.

THE SECOND TIME

So then I moved to LA with the band, a thing I mostly didn’t want to do but didn’t allow myself to know that, turning down some Big Acting Work in the process, which on certain gray days I still blame for Everything. (But that’s a whole one-woman show from many years ago and I am supposed to be working on the OTHER one that’s coming up May 5-7 at The Cell Theatre in Manhattan. Why can I not write this. Ahem.)

I lived in LA for three years, learning a lot while the band slowly imploded (again, a whole other story.) One night toward the end I was playing a solo set in a folk club in Santa Monica called Anastasia’s Asylum, wow which also doesn’t exist anymore so I guess this story really is about ghosts. I was playing alone because the band, etc., like I said, and I was feeling pretty bummed out and questioning my Path. This feeling was not helped by the fact that I was performing in a coffeehouse, not a music venue, and if you’ve played out at all you know the difference. The coffee is the point, not you. There is no stage, no lighting, no break in the noise from either audience chatter or the milk steamer. Anastasia’s took this vibe a step further by seating the musicians in an upstairs balcony, which ensures that any audience will be either directly behind you or be one flight down and visible only (if you’re sitting down to play) through wooden slats.

I was sitting down to play. And maybe that’s why at first I had no idea who yelled.

“Play something from this album!”

I stood up and peered down over the balcony and there, grinning broadly at the counter while waving one of my CDs, was Andre. Freakin. Agassi.

I recognized him immediately.

He waved, I waved back, and then immediately thought that’s probably not who I think it is, and by the time I finished the set and found out from the barista that it definitely was, he had vanished into the night.

Long after I moved back East and started acting again, then writing new music, then writing shows… I’d think of this moment. To me, it was a visitation. A sign. Someone from the Other Side (of Success) appearing just to say I remember you, you matter. A (literal, actual) Champion just when I needed one most.

THE (KIND OF NOT REALLY) THIRD TIME

So cut to last week.

It’s 2023. I’m on a yoga retreat in the Berkshires, and - at the risk of admitting I have become a parody of myself- I’m attending an afternoon lecture on the concept of dharma. (Stay with me.)

Translated many ways, this word basically means Right Action. Life Purpose. Doing What Is Right, but also Doing What You Are Meant To Do. Acknowledging and following your dharma = a good life. Not doing so = probably not as much.

So I’m sitting there, glowing from two yoga classes and a vegetarian lunch, thinking how lucky I am to be in a beautiful peaceful place being my most beautiful peaceful self…

-when a woman in the front row PISSES ME OFF.

Like, flame-to-Kleenex, 0-to-60, not-supposed-to-happen-at-the-kripalu-center type of rage.

Why? Well, for one thing, I really hate it when a student in a class decides that they are the teacher and loudly dominates what is supposed to be a group discussion, Whateversplaining with no apparent self-awareness. I hate this very very much.¹

This woman did this.

But also … she dissed Andre Agassi.

!!

I know, I know. It’s ridiculous, what do I care, I don’t even know the man, and also, how did he even come up in this situation???

In the Bhagavad Gita (stay with me), the ancient Hindu religious text, there is a bold statement about dharma. It is an idea that I think is particularly shocking and even a little bit scary to the modern, capitalist, ambition-oriented inside of my head culture we live in. It says:

It is better to do one’s own dharma, even imperfectly
Than to do the dharma of someone else, even perfectly.

Let that one sink in.

It is better to “Fail” at Your Own Thing than to “Succeed” at Someone Else’s? Better to do the thing you’re meant to do, even if you don’t do it perfectly, than to do something that isn’t your path?? Even if you do it really well and make a lot of money???? IS THAT THOUGHT EVEN LEGAL IN AMERICA?

The teacher read this quote and gently started a discussion about our notions of success and failure and how to recognize your true path. And she talked about wht it might mean to “do someone else’s dharma” instead of your own, whether for money or status or approval or what have you… and the (potential) suffering this might (might!) beget. We talked about how it’s easy to compare and covet and assume that certain things will satisfy us, but we aren’t always right … certainly not about truth of someone else’s life.

“For instance”, she said lightly, “Andre Agassi hated tennis.”

I sat up a little straighter in my chair. Wait what?

Voices chimed in: yeah yeah I read his book and relationship with his father and pushed him and approval and addiction and divorce and pain and he quit and now he runs some kind of foundation… and I’m like:

Wait - Andre Agassi? MY Andre Agassi?

(Ok, we haven’t been in touch.)

It was interesting. And then teacher was preparing to move on to something else when the woman in the front row spoke up, loudly and sneeringly, with her take on things (let me see, I’m paraphrasing, but:)

OH BOO HOO SO THE RICH AND FAMOUS GUY HAD PROBLEMS SO WHAT HE MADE ALL THAT MONEY AND NOW HE HELPS PEOPLE SO WHO CARES.

(But, longer.)

And I got up and left.

Not immediately. But eventually, partly because I was going to Say Something and partly because Your One was now off on a tangent about how great her daughter was for going to medical school.

I think. I was in the hallway by then.

I stood there with my heart going 100 miles an hour, and thought, ok, Rebecca that was annoying, but…what’s going on? Because this is maybe a kind of… Big? Reaction?

Which was when I remembered this whole story I just told you.

I flashed on that moment years ago in the cafe. It’s still a very clear snapshot in my mind: me in the balcony, him on the floor. A shout, a wave, a smile.

I’ve always thought of that Visitation one way: a gesture of encouragement from a Successful Person to a Less Successful One.

But now I maybe also see it a different way.

I see myself in the balcony, forlornly clutching my guitar, and doing my dharma, imperfectly.

And I see a person who - as it turns out - might have been perfectly doing someone else’s dharma the whole time, waving up at me, and maybe just trying to let me know.

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Ok that’s it. See you next week - or FRIDAY NIGHT 7PM at Rockwood Music Hall.

xo

Rebecca

1. I’m familiar with You Spot It, You Got It, and if I have ever been this person in the past, I apologize.