What I’ve Learned While Mourning David Rakoff

I am, frankly, surprised how hard David Rakoff’s death is affecting me today. I’ve been a fan of his work on This American Life, and love his charming, witty stories, as much for the content as his delivery. I’ve fallen off listening to This American Life as a regular practice lately. Just simple, embarrassing neglect really.

I hadn’t really realized how ill David was. Last week, I listened to the audio of the live This American Life episode that he participated in. The story he told, “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board”, was about his illness and what changes in life it brings, the things he misses doing. And then, suddenly, he dances, one last time, on stage. It was sweet and moving all at once and I found myself tearing up.

A week later, he’s gone. 47 years old. Cancer. And even the thought of watching the video version of David Rakoff dancing brings me to tears.

I think I figured out a big part of why I’m hit so hard by his passing. It occurred to me when I was reading this beautiful post “On Already Missing The Angry Passionate Writing of David Rakoff” by Linda Holmes. As Linda wrote:

 ”…like David Rakoff, you can also be genuine and enraged and passionate about the whole of humanity, even when (especially when) it disappoints and maddens and angers you.”

In mourning, I acknowledge I have a deep, abiding love of people like that, who are funny and passionate and all those things. I find myself drawn to people like that in my life, and admire those who are capable of being all those things. I aspire to be all those things. And David managed to do all that and for that. I thank him for making me pay closer attention to that part of myself. I will miss him terribly. 

A collection of David Rakoff’s contributions to This American Life can be found here. Spend some time listening to them. .

Lessons To Help You Live Longer # 82

While getting staff to clean their desks at work and remove any non-standard items from their workstation, I was warned of an important piece of advice from a manager:

Never try to take away a fan from a woman in her late 40s or early 50s.

Achtung Baby

I stumbled onto something funny today. While flipping through the Entertainment Weekly website, I discovered I've been quoted sort of. Click here to take a look.

I had responded to this thread on "Your Great Pop Culture Regrets and Missed Opportunities". A week later, I've found my comment has been used in a photo gallery on the site that basically picked a dozen comments and put them with accompanying photos.

What was the anecdote?

The story goes that when I was in high school, I had a pair of tickets to go see U2 on their first round of the Zoo TV tour. It would have been early 1992, the "Achtung Baby" album was huge, and they were playing Maple Leaf Gardens.

The problem was me. I was pretty insecure as a teenager, so I waited until the last minute to ask someone to go. Everyone I asked couldn't make it, girls and "just friends" alike. I thought about asking this one girl from work. She had been the target of my misplaced, socially inept teenage affection. That is to say, I had a big old crush on that girl. But as a teenager, I didn't resemble the more confident gentleman caller you know today. It was a harmless crush, but I had a tendency to feel clumsy or goofy, saying the wrong thing if I managed to blurt out anything at all. Anytime I was around her, my brain would short out.

I knew U2 was her favourite band and I think I remember giving her a cassette of "Achtung Baby" for her birthday. But with days before the concert, I chickened out and never asked her. I had never seen an 80s teen movie, so how was I to know the geek could get the girl? I ended up selling the tickets to a classmate at face value and never saw the show.

The two punchlines:

#1 - The opening band, who I had never heard of at that point, were The Pixies. Seeing the Pixies (and U2 for that matter) in their prime would have been great.

#2 - Months later, that crush girl gave me a ride home from work one night. We got around to talking about that show and how I had sold the tickets. She said "I would have gone with you if you had asked."

Normally I say "Ha! Good one God, you got me again." But you know, that was my own damned fault, wasn't it?

The lesson, albeit years later, has been learned: I don't want to miss out on anything just because I didn't ask, or because I was too self-conscious to go by myself.

It's not "Degrassi Junior High" quality drama, more of a "Wonder Years" episode: just a story about a shy teenager, and the dumb things kids do.