Wednesday I attended the cremation of Mike, a friend of mine and more especially my partner's for nearly thirty years. His wife spoke at length about their family life - three kids and a menagerie is not always heaven but rarely hell was the message. As my white, middle class street party attending students would say: true dat. (one of my class is dressing up as a Corgi for the day, I would've thought some kind of Germanic cross breed where the genetic stock is gradually weakened by centuries of near incestuous coupling would be more appropriate -producing the canine equivalent of the Habsburg jaw)
His brother spoke eloquently about his the boundaries of his life: study, work and a select circle of friends all centred around Goldsmiths where we met. Kind of a different approach to social neworking where some collect friends like another upgrade of the mobile phone - like so many notches on the blogpost. Anything valuable must have a cost is what I try to teach unless you are Fred the Shred and his breed where the consequences of your egomania are borne by everyone but you. - these people live in a world of arrested development they are permanent children. Such people remind me of audiences who shunned our topical comedy because they did not understand the references which would have included commentary on the troubles in the North of Ireland while they were going on - for eighteen year old media students aceptable; for adults of voting age plainly not. Some Joncom comics are proud that they can tailor their material to suit the audience - I think of them playing to Guantanamo inmates as part of some bizarre human rights act (Hague ruling - the troops get comedy so prisoners must have access too)
Ever notice when you're being waterboarded that it does wonders for your creative block - I wrote a huge list of fictional al qaeda suspects
At such events as these memorials you go back to the house of memory - the garden with bouncy castle where every child but the birthday boy bounced, the builders skip outside as the loft conversion creates the space needed for Mike to create his wonderful art. Mike's intolerance of bad art was something I have always admired - as stated interchangeable comics who lack clear identity and have literally nothing to say fall into this category in my book. Here you are inevitably going to revisit your past while you celebrate the wonders of the life lost. And you will meet and deal with the results of past actions and words then sleep soundly tired in mind and soul. You share the knowledge that for all of their foibles and faults the select friends and exes who proclaim their material and familial successes including the minutiae (Teresa had a guniea pig but the parkaeet and it never got on so we moved to Clapham when Aunt Doris paid for me to retrain as a lapdancer but I really want to run a teashop like cousin Billy) - like an in concert rendering of a Christmas round robin - some will even pause to ask same of their audience but not all - you have enough in common to rub along for a few hours. You are reminded of this at weddings (in the past now sadly apart from second ones) and sadly funerals - now more frequently.
Diagnosed with lung cancer in January and cremated in April the week of the big event - hence my title. As I witness the kowtowing and the return to the 1950s ( the postwar concensus and welfare state replaced by colossal debt created by the overclass who are in attendance today and division in politics between, let's be honest, the people and the politicians) I write this in memoriam of Mike as my means of escape and if anyone reads this then do two things - stop smoking now if at all possible; contact an old friend you don't see enough and be with them in silence or in noise - feel their presence and let them feel yours.
Without being too shallow Mike will be recalled for his well remarked upon physical beauty that seemed as darkly mysterious as the earth: like a creature of Pan, an Ariel ,a Puck. Such things diminish inevitably but his knowledge, integrity, talent and warmth remain lodged deeper and will endure in me. The world misses Mike almost as much as we do.
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