With A Friend Like This…

Friend or Foe?: "It's a type of evil that no one's really admitted to before," says Albo of our undercutting acquaintances.

Mike Albo unmasks the subtle art of undermining.

by Gary M. Kramer

Meet The Underminer. You probably already know this irresistibly evil human. He or she is, according to author and performance artist Mike Albo, "the best friend who casually destroys your life."

Albo created this noxious character. "The Underminer is really one of my closest friends," he says. "He's always been a part of my life. I adore him, but he is one of the worst underminers I have ever known."

What exactly does this person do? Through the course of Albo's new book The Underminer (Bloomsbury, 176 pp., $19.95), which should be read in one sitting for maximum impact, the title character bests "the victim" (i.e., you, the reader) by one-upping you through savvy business investments (Maxx Racks), a keen eye for trend-spotting (yoga) and celebrity friends (Kurt and Courtney). Meanwhile, you suffer a series of increasingly degrading (and hilarious) humiliations, like getting caught in a dust storm without water at the Burning Man festival.

You and The Underminer meet at Clarkwell College graduation in 1990. The Underminer asks you about turning in "the Green Form" to graduate. After you check your messy wallet, The Underminer says, "I would freak out if I couldn't streamline my wallet. Oh, I think you dropped this twenty. Oh, no wait, it's actually mine. Sorry."

As Albo describes his creation, The Underminer is "a cockroach of consumerism. He can survive anything. He shape-shifts. Whatever trend is at its height, he'll be with it. He gets the cool cache of hip-hop circles because he's part black; he learns Arabic in two weeks; he's best friends with an Iraqi." It's enough to cause fits of envy.

The trajectory of the book, which Albo gleefully admits is a "downward slope, a toilet-bowl flush," is an interesting time capsule of events, from the recession of 1990 through the boom year, and from the dot-com bust to 9/11 and the war in Iraq. These touchstones give Albo the freedom to comment on American society and specifically what is wrong with it. "No one knows how to run a trend into the ground like America," the author announces snarkily.

Albo continues to speak in The Underminer's voice — he calls the tone "gay accent [with] a little nasal" or "softer, more caring," but still sinister — when he confesses his real motivations for writing the character and the book. "It was really born out of my frustration with fabulous-ity bullshit," he says. "To sit around and kvetch about how "sell-out' our country had gotten [can be annoying], but I found a voice for different cultural commentary. What is rewarded in our culture made me angry when I sat down to write, and it still does."

The Underminer stems from the author's performance work, and seeing him play the character (or read from the book) certainly enhances the messages. In fact, the author almost seems to prefer playing The Underminer than writing it.

"I can't tell you what joy it brings people when I play it onstage," he says. "It's kind of therapeutic. It's like getting out some rage. I'm exposing all of these underhanded ways we are violent to one another. It's a type of evil that no one's really admitted to before."

Now that The Underminer is poised to be a cult novel for the hip and trendy, Albo fantasizes about his book's success. "I would love it to become part of the lexicon," he says dreamily, hoping to coin a lasting phrase like "Generation X."

Until then, the author and performance artist is amused by the book's initial fan base. "One thing that really turns me on," he says, "is that people who are reading it are interested in self-help books. The Underminer is self-help disguised as a novel."

And while the book is based on the author's performance, Albo credited his friend Virginia Heffernan as a co-writer. "She collaborated on my performance stuff," he explains. "I wrote it all, came up with the narrative, and then I would give it to her, and she'd give me zingers."

Yet Albo knew better than to steal her ideas without acknowledgement. "It would be very underminer-y of me not to include her," he admits.

Mike Albo reads from The Underminer, Sun., March 6, 5:30 p.m., Giovanni's Room, 345 S. 12th St., 215-923-2960. He also performs that night at 9 p.m. at L'étage, 624 S. Sixth St., 215-592-0656.

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