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ericcoleman3. Do you know someone personally that is living with AIDS? That has died of AIDS?
I dropped the other questions, mostly because I have been with one person for the last 17 years, so my danger level is pretty low.
But, I did want to write about two friends of mine.
L was a large, hysterically funny, outgoing arabic man who I went to college with. He was the target of what was probably my best insult ever (which he then used on others). One fairly drunken night he was telling me how cute I was (this was when I was young and skinny and pretty) and how if I ever had an urge ...
My reply was to look him in the eye and say "but L, I prefer men".
His reaction was loud and hysterical and very funny because it was followed with "I am stealing that line".
He also came up with the best line ever about me. I used to be an avid Donkey Kong player. He once said that I liked the game so much because I talked like the little man sounded. Simply the best comment on my stutter ever. My then g/f was there when he said it and and told me about it because, knowing me well, knew that I would find that sort of poking fun to be extremely funny. Me being me I of course bugged him with it saying "SO, I sound like the little guy in Donkey Kong do I?" This followed by another wonderful L explosion.
This sort of banter typified our friendship.
He was one of the most vibrant folks I have ever known. Imagine John Rhys Davies as a flaming, flaming, flaming queen, with an enormous and glorious baritone voice and you have a good idea. He died a couple of years after we moved back to Iowa. He had been living with the disease for several years, but just wasn't strong enough to continue. The world is a sadder place for his not being in it. I miss him.
L lived in a house with two friends of mine. When he graduated another fellow moved in in his place. A very talented young actor who I shall call D. D became aware of his infection when we were still in Chicago, so 13 or more years ago. He survives. I hope that he continues to do so. He never liked me much, but I certainly liked him. He was funny, amazingly powerful onstage and one of the rudest people it has ever been my pleasure to know.
And lastly.
There is this song on the No Alternative record that came out a decade or so called Glynis. She was the bass player in a band called Friends Of Betty, this amazingly chaotic punk band who were one of my favorites at the time and then later the brilliant Red Red Meat. She had been fighting some sort of illness for some time. I'm not sure if it was known before or after she died that she had AIDs. But one day her hair fell out, and about a week later she was dead. RRM was playing a show shortly afterwards. They had been using a replacement bass player for a couple months. I remember walking into a new silent club and being hauled aside by Tim, the lead singer. "Have you heard". I had. "I wanted to be the one to tell you if you hadn't". He was terrified, since they had been involved on and off for several years. He's ok, still negative, but he won't talk about that time much.
Back to the song. It is this awful touchy feely wimp of a song. Everyone I ever talked to who knew her agrees that she would have hated it. Rage, that is what she would have wanted. She loved loud, obnoxious, fun music. Billy Corrigan did her such a dis-service with this whiny song. For that matter he hardly knew her.
I'm sad that I will never see her brandishing her beat up fender bass like it was a rhythm guitar, pounding out chords where most would just play a note. She was fun, odd, beautiful in a decidely Glynis sort of way. A blast onstage. She had a sharp sense of humor which took some aback, but which I loved, me being me and all.
Three folks of such talent, two of them gone.
I dropped the other questions, mostly because I have been with one person for the last 17 years, so my danger level is pretty low.
But, I did want to write about two friends of mine.
L was a large, hysterically funny, outgoing arabic man who I went to college with. He was the target of what was probably my best insult ever (which he then used on others). One fairly drunken night he was telling me how cute I was (this was when I was young and skinny and pretty) and how if I ever had an urge ...
My reply was to look him in the eye and say "but L, I prefer men".
His reaction was loud and hysterical and very funny because it was followed with "I am stealing that line".
He also came up with the best line ever about me. I used to be an avid Donkey Kong player. He once said that I liked the game so much because I talked like the little man sounded. Simply the best comment on my stutter ever. My then g/f was there when he said it and and told me about it because, knowing me well, knew that I would find that sort of poking fun to be extremely funny. Me being me I of course bugged him with it saying "SO, I sound like the little guy in Donkey Kong do I?" This followed by another wonderful L explosion.
This sort of banter typified our friendship.
He was one of the most vibrant folks I have ever known. Imagine John Rhys Davies as a flaming, flaming, flaming queen, with an enormous and glorious baritone voice and you have a good idea. He died a couple of years after we moved back to Iowa. He had been living with the disease for several years, but just wasn't strong enough to continue. The world is a sadder place for his not being in it. I miss him.
L lived in a house with two friends of mine. When he graduated another fellow moved in in his place. A very talented young actor who I shall call D. D became aware of his infection when we were still in Chicago, so 13 or more years ago. He survives. I hope that he continues to do so. He never liked me much, but I certainly liked him. He was funny, amazingly powerful onstage and one of the rudest people it has ever been my pleasure to know.
And lastly.
There is this song on the No Alternative record that came out a decade or so called Glynis. She was the bass player in a band called Friends Of Betty, this amazingly chaotic punk band who were one of my favorites at the time and then later the brilliant Red Red Meat. She had been fighting some sort of illness for some time. I'm not sure if it was known before or after she died that she had AIDs. But one day her hair fell out, and about a week later she was dead. RRM was playing a show shortly afterwards. They had been using a replacement bass player for a couple months. I remember walking into a new silent club and being hauled aside by Tim, the lead singer. "Have you heard". I had. "I wanted to be the one to tell you if you hadn't". He was terrified, since they had been involved on and off for several years. He's ok, still negative, but he won't talk about that time much.
Back to the song. It is this awful touchy feely wimp of a song. Everyone I ever talked to who knew her agrees that she would have hated it. Rage, that is what she would have wanted. She loved loud, obnoxious, fun music. Billy Corrigan did her such a dis-service with this whiny song. For that matter he hardly knew her.
I'm sad that I will never see her brandishing her beat up fender bass like it was a rhythm guitar, pounding out chords where most would just play a note. She was fun, odd, beautiful in a decidely Glynis sort of way. A blast onstage. She had a sharp sense of humor which took some aback, but which I loved, me being me and all.
Three folks of such talent, two of them gone.
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Date: 2005-12-02 09:14 pm (UTC)*hug*
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Date: 2005-12-02 10:44 pm (UTC)I remember another friend visiting from New York when this first started and showing us his address book where page after page had the names scored out. It was shocking to realise how big an impact it was having.
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Date: 2005-12-03 01:39 am (UTC)And, "but...I prefer men" is just priceless.
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Date: 2005-12-03 03:47 am (UTC)I finally realized this year that I don't know anyone personally (that I know of) with AIDS. There was one guy back in the '80s who *claimed* to have it but had been cured. He was such a drama queen that none of us took him very seriously; and I was on the fringe of a mutual group, so I never did find out what happened to him.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 06:37 pm (UTC)Had another friend, maybe a couple years before that, also in Phoenix. Went to school with his roommate. We were on the same BBS systems, went to the SCA meetings, he was in the Battletech club, went to cons. One day, Kevin came into class, and said he was dropping out because his roommate had died. I knew he had two roomies, and I was shocked when he said 28 year old Bob had died of kidney failure in his sleep.
I got a giant WTF about 6 months later. I logged on to one of the BBS systems, and got an e-mail from Bob. "Hey Sciffster! Saw you driving around in your truck the other day, jamming to the beat! Kevin told me you'd said hello. Drop by if you're in the neighborhood!" Er... but he's been dead for 6 months. :( I contacted the SysOp, only to confirm, it was the last message he ever sent before laying down for that nap...
But this story gets even more WTF. Here I am, all these years later, and I still remembered my friend. Then I ended up on the #dementia channel of IRC on EFNet. I met a bunch of people from Phoenix, and we talked about the good old days. Eventually, one of them said that when he turns 18, he's going to change his name, because he hates what his mom stuck him with. He'd never mentioned before then that he was adopted. He told his birth name, and I said that's funny, my friend had the same last name. He told me his dad's name. I told him my friend's name. Only the middle name was different. He said his dad died in 1989 of a heart attack, at age 28. Er, my friend was in 1989 of kidney failure at age 28, but this is a hell of a coincidence. His mom eventually woke up from her nap, and they dug out the death certificate. It turned out my memory was better than the mother's. I got the name right, but while they had originally thought it was kidney faiure (due to him having some kidney stones removed), he had actually died of a heart attack. After I told other stories about the guy, they were certain I'd known his father. When he sent me a link to photos of himself, I was certain they were related. I can only wonder if Bob knew before he died... or maybe she told him, and that's when he had the heart attack. :P I can only assume that if Bob and her weren't living together, that he was likely kicked out, possibly because she was pregnant, which would also explain why I never knew there was a kid out there. Kinda weird to be friends with the kid now though!
Then you've got other things that aren't quite the same, but maybe closer to AIDS. I've got a grandma with Alzheimers. I remember how she used to be, and it's nothing like the way she is now. You know she'll die eventually, you know it gets worse all the time. Everyone is just waiting for it to be over, for the pain to end. It's not the shock of a heart attack, but maybe it's sadder, because you have to watch for years, knowing how it will end.