124 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
124 lines
7.8 KiB
Plaintext
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_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
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| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
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| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
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| |________________________________________________________________| |
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|____________________________________________________________________|
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...presents... I'd Rather be Dead than Live in California
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by Oxblood Ruffin
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09/01/1997-#336
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__///////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\\__
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\\\\\\\/ Everything You Need Since 1986 \///////
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___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___
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|___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons___|
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Toronto is an unusually grey city. Today it rained a dull monochrome
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from the heavens to the concrete. I think that most people become
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morose during this kind of weather and I am no exception. I wandered the
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house aimlessly, had some filler conversation, did some low surge napping and
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skimmed the Web. Eventually I ended up browsing through Bruce Chatwin's,
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"What Am I Doing Here?" - a lovely collection of his essays and travel
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pieces. Somehow I thought I had read the entire book but was surprised
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to have missed a eulogy to an American artist, a painter who had died quite
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tragically and at far too young an age in the Dutch lowlands. It was either
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through some weakness of my own or because of the rain that I could
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not concentrate. I drifted and caught myself and tried to read again
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and drifted some more. Finally I gave up in favor of another nap.
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There was no sleep. The rain rubbed the window arhythmically and
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suddenly I was back in New York with Paul. I could feel myself smiling.
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I had met Paul at Tavern on the Green where we both worked as waiters.
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I was working evenings while I looked for more suitable employment in the
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United Nations community and he was enduring the same hell on his way
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through graduate school. Paul was being groomed for the upper echelons
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of American art criticism at Columbia University. I believe he was born
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in Connecticut and had been educated at Princeton. I do not think he was
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more than twenty-two or three but he had already published extensively.
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But more interesting for me, he was a kindred spirit. It started with
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California.
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One evening before the shift began the waiters crowded around the
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bar trying to impress one another. Somebody mentioned that California was
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_the_ place to go. Plenty of work, beautiful women, blim blam. I said it
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was a place fit only for trees and sunblock, or something like that.
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Immediately Paul clapped me on the back and introduced himself. He then
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vilified every scintilla of life form on the West coast. It was a total
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slash and burn performance, and devastatingly funny. From then on we formed
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a bitch brigade. I was the straight man - so to speak - and he was, well,
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he was Paul. Nothing escaped our censure. The Maitre d' was a moron, the
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food sucked and anyone with a new haircut was an easy target. I
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think knowing him then helped me get through that purgatory of hollandaise
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and ass kissing. But Paul had to leave shortly after we met.
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He contracted scarlet fever and was off for about six weeks.
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Paul came back finally but he was different. There was a lingering
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redness in his face and a sort of deflation in his spirit that troubled me.
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Not long after his return we stood in the middle of the main dining room.
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It was slow. Somewhere between the hors d'oeuvres and main plate of our first
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table he told me that he had AIDS. I understood that he told me that he was
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going to die. It was surreal, like a horrible accident where you have to
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check your normal emotions because there is no other choice. I stood there
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calmly and put my hand on his shoulder. We just looked at each other in a
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quiet dining room. And then I asked if he had spoken with his friends and
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family about this. He said that he had not and left to go for the entrees.
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Finally some normal feeling returned and I began to cry. I left the
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floor with my head down and got up to the change room with no one noticing.
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I felt depressed and light at the same time. After Paul's doctor, I was the
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only one to know anything. I thought that I was an odd choice for this
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confidence because I am not homosexual and I only know the gay gestalt as a
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tourist. Perhaps it was our common contempt for California. For whatever
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reason, I was deeply touched. His trust somehow took the sting out of his
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news. Paul deteriorated very quickly and did not work very long thereafter
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and after he left I never saw him again. Early one morning
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some months after he left Tavern on the Green the phone rang and my
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girlfriend took the call. She gasped and passed me the phone. It was our
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friend, Eric. Paul had died.
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He was the first person I knew who had died of AIDS. From then until
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now that list has grown exponentially. Paul was cheated and so was art
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criticism and so was everyone who might have savored his wit and wisdom.
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Some days I think we have lost an entire generation and the better part of
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a community that I still do not know as well as I should. And some days when
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it rains I think of Paul, my old friend who makes me feel so warmly morose.
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This feeling - according to Tibetan Buddhists - is the cornerstone of spiritual
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growth. The ability to clasp sadness as a friend, they say, is somehow the
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beginning of true happiness. So perhaps today I am a little more connected
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than I would otherwise be, sitting here in the waning rainfall, the monitor
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glowing out of the window into the darkness. And even though it may be true
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that Los Angeles has a better climate than Toronto, I would rather be dead
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than live in California.
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.-. _ _ .-.
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/ \ .-. ((___)) .-. / \
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/.ooM \ / \ .-. [ x x ] .-. / \ /.ooM \
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-/-------\-------/-----\-----/---\--\ /--/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\-
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/lucky 13\ / \ / `-(' ')-' \ / \ /lucky 13\
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\ / `-' (U) `-' \ /
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`-' the original e-zine `-' _
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Oooo eastside westside / ) __
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/)(\ ( \ WORLDWIDE / ( / \
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\__/ ) / Copyright (c) 1997 cDc communications and the author. \ ) \)(/
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(_/ CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a registered trademark of oooO
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cDc communications, PO Box 53011, Lubbock, TX, 79453, USA. _
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oooO All rights reserved. Edited by Grandmaster Ratte'. __ ( \
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/ ) /)(\ / \ ) \
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\ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( /
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\_) xXx BOW to the COW xXx Oooo
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