| 22.3.16 15:17 |  |  | My Jaime Carrera stories are gonna sound pretty boring by comparison to the wonderful friends who have already written some wonderful things about him (and I suspect that will continue for a while, and I love to read all of them, so please keep them coming). The most time I ever spent with him was the night I gave him a ride to see Kraftwerk at Myth back in 2008. I was happy to see that he was maybe even a little more excited to be there in the same building with them as I was, even after we figured out that Florian Schneider was no longer performing with the group. He was also most responsible for my apprecation of CLAPS, just from observing the sheer force of his own fandom - we never talked about it but he'd be THERE when they'd perform and he'd be so into it that it was infectious. We were never really "direct" friends - the most direct contact we ever had was through Old MySpace, which feels like eons ago because it was. Mostly I'd only ever see him in "real life" at parties thrown by our mutual friends but be happy to see him (then him AND Nick) and have short chats about - let's face it, mundane things really, because I don't think I ever really had a lot of interesting stuff to talk about so the most interesting stuff would be what he'd been doing or was about to do. But he'd also enthusiastically karaoke at Gera's parties, for instance, and appreciate others' karaoke, irrespective of talent level, usually taking some great photographs all the while which we would be able to see later to relive the moment. (He did really like it when I performed Pet Shop Boys' "Go West" and I do remember why.) Over the years I got a lot of invitations to a lot of his events and I don't think I ever went to any of them, so I never really got to experience his art firsthand, but I'd hear about it from other folks, read about it here on Facebook and in reviews and always admire it, because I always admired him. As it always goes, you figure there'll be time to catch the next one. He revealed so much of himself through his art and life and it was always fascinating to hear about his early life and how it shaped his later life. Mostly he was so good at sharing himself, usually without regard for whatever consequences might be spurred, and I have always wanted to do more of that - and in my way, this is probably part of that, but it's also very lazy because it's easier to talk about me than him. I am having a lot of difficulty believing that he's not out there so I'm going to choose to believe he's now out there in another way. My heart goes out to Nick and all my mutual friends who were much closer to him than I ever was and are probably taking this even harder than I am. Don't forget I love you all while I hate that it always seems to take a disaster for me to type out those words. And this feels like a disaster. But thank you, Jaime - thanks for being who you are and touching so so many of us by being who you are. I don't have any old photos to attach but here's the most random attempt at humor from me I found looking back through your timeline because making the reader sit through over 600 words wasn't enough. I guess I'm also an asshole. See ya, asshole! WHAT THE HELL. THIS SUCKS. DITTO ET CETERA. |
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