Welcome to the Eric Rofes Blog
We have found that community building was one of Eric's qualities, and would like to offer a place for friends and family to offer their feelings, thoughts, and perspectives so all can benefit from those who Eric touched so deeply.
Please post your own writing here and join the people who are determined to keep Eric's legacy and memory alive.
Click on the Comment link below to begin.
93 Comments:
Many thanks for whoever put this up. The loss of Eric Rofes is so deep. I can only hope that his vision lives on in all of us. He was so tirelessly devoted to the idea of gay people having the answers to our own questions. I just respected him immensely.
I wrote the following poem about his death.
The Bones Still Breath by Dan Vera
for Eric Rofes
sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower,
and retell it in words and in touch,
it is lovely
- Galway Kinnell, “St. Francis and the Sow”
I want to place garlands on your head
for all your loving,
for all your belief in our beauty.
But you have gone to dust,
to your precious bones
that still breathe even in death.
You knew well the necessary work of loving.
You ripped through the dark veils of shame.
You knew well the hard work of healing.
You always reminded us of how we are wonderful.
We reteach your lesson of faith in our beauty.
In this way your wisdom will rattle the bones of our living
We reteach your lesson of our bodies as sacred
In this way your wisdom will cause us to dance.
Teacher of faith, lover of our living,
You dance within us and through us now,
With all of the ancestors
Who lived and who loved and who leave us now
With their faith in our ability to love.
Ai yi yi. Another 4th of July weekend coming up, another loss.
Five years ago this (coming) week I lost my beloved Jeremy. He suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage while we were visiting friends at a 4th of July pool party. We had just returned to Houston from a "fabulous, fun-filled, family vacation" (really!) in San Antonio with our two kids, David, 14, and Emily, 12, for whom Jeremy was the beloved step-daddy. He died two days later, never having regained consciousness. We'd been together seven years and he was all of 30 years old.
I'm a librarian by profession and at the time of Jeremy's death I was working in a research medical library. Within a couple of months I decided to take a look to see what was "in the literature" on gay men and widowhood. (I know, I know, what a librarian thing to do; it's a calling, not just a profession.)
I was totally flabbergasted to find that the journal literature (mid 2001) on gay men and widowhood was nearly non-existent, even after two decades of the HIV / AIDS crisis. Plenty of articles about "survivor guilt" and "catastrophic loss of community" (topics Eric knew too well, I'm afraid), almost nothing on what it's like to be the surviving, healthy partner of a deceased spouse who didn't die of AIDS.
For whatever reason -- whether it's because we're men or because society hasn't valued our relationships or because so many of our relationships have been clandestine -- we don't talk about it much but as our straight brothers and sisters know, we're all destined for it.
I'm sure it's something Eric talked about. When I was first coming out (belatedly, at age 35, in 1993) he was one of the first "gay author's" I read. I was immediately impressed by his intelligence, his clear, accessible writing style, and his compassion. (Also, let's be honest, his hunky good looks! What a woofy man!)
None of which is any consolation, I know, for Crispin and all the others who knew and loved Eric personally and first hand, not at a distance, as I did. As has been the case, with so many others, he left much too soon. The void is deep, the loss beyond bearing.
And yet we do. We owe it to him. To Eric. To Jeremy. To all the ones we've loved.
They were in our hearts before we ever knew them; they will be there until the end of time.
Much love...
Richard Jasper
East Amherst, NY
Goodbye to Eric Rofes
by Benjamin Shepard
I just got word that Eric Rofes died of a heart attack. I had known Rofes since our time in San Francisco with Shanti Project in the early 1990’s. We reconnected together in the late 1990’s doing SexPanic! stuff in 1998. He was a caring voice who hoped for pleasure to be part of our democracy. He argued for this, screamed about it, yearned for it. When he was attacked he fought back about it. And many attacked Rofes. They attacked him for wearing leather when he testified at the National AIDS Commission in San Francisco. He was criticized for embracing Walt Odets and the notion of survivor guilt among gay people who had lost whole cohorts of friends to HIV. And he was attacked when he ran Shanti Project. But he kept going. And he kept on asking people to think about the complexity of their lives and struggles and emotions. After leaving Shanti Project, he earned at PhD at Berkeley and wrote two enormously influential books, Reviving the Tribe: Regenerating Gay Men’s Sexuality and Culture in a Period of Ongoing Epidemic and Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post AIDS Identities and Subcultures. Both were enormously important, contextualizing the losses to community, pleasure, friendship, and social knowledge of the connection between public sexual space and community organizing with the AIDS years. Early in Reviving the Tribe, Rofes wrote about standing with tears in front of a sex club where he had once enjoyed so much pleasure. Rofes was intensely aware of the multiple losses to AIDS and the need to think through what was going on. “I believe that any hope for collective survival is rooted in the realities of our lives, however, harsh and seemingly unacceptable,” Rofes wrote. “Our inability to continue confronting the ever-intensifying manifestations of AIDS has brought us to the point of paralysis.”
Rofes railed against those who suggested gay men should just ‘grow up’ and reject public sexual culture. “Even a cursory look at the histories of our movement will show that sexual liberation has been inextricably bound together with gay liberation, the women's movement, and the emancipation of youth,” he wrote. He suggested a vast cultural amnesia was taking place as the lessons of the gay liberation years were lost amidst panic over continued rates of HIV. Rofes was keenly aware of the complexity of questions of sexual self determination. “For many, the forbidden becomes desired; taboo produces cravings; the return of the repressed is made corporeal and is experienced as an enormous hunger,” he wrote in his newest book. He was always aware telling gay men or anyone to just say no served no one’s ends but the moralists. Thus, HIV prevention would have to be considered within a broad holistic, harm reduction approach. For Rofes, there was far more to the question of pleasure than just getting off or male privilege. Central principles of democracy in America lay at the core of the sex panic question. Rofes wondered, can you lose your job for deviating from conventional sexual norms? For many, the answer is affirmative. Like so much else within our democracy, what one person enjoys, another will inevitably find offensive, he counseled. Variation is a core component of social life. And some people built alternative kinship networks. This should not be condemned, at least not in a pluralistic democracy. “Among the most effective ways of oppressing a people is through the colonization of their bodies, the stigmatizing of their desires, and the repression of their erotic energies,” he claimed during the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Creating Change Conference San Diego, November 16, 1997. “We believe continuing work on sexual liberation is crucial to social justice efforts,” (see complete speech below).
In 1998, Rofes came to New York to speak on a panel for the one year anniversary of SexPanic! and contacted me. I had just finished a book about the San Francisco AIDS years (White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the San Francisco AIDS Epidemic) and he wanted to talk about the book. We talked about survival, the capacity for resiliency, and the hope for a lusty pleasure in a democracy. I told him about my work with the group as a kinky straight man and he encouraged me to push forward and help forge a different kind of politics based in caring connection and social justice rather than identity, despite what people said. I had always had an image of him being a radical, but in person he was a caring, thoughtful person willing to consider each of our unique contributions. He was ever aware of all of our capacities to contradict ourselves and be bountiful. And was painfully aware that some of his greatest critics were gay men who scorned him for integrating his own personal story into a larger story of gay liberation and the need to revive the tribe. ‘Where are your sexual politics?’ he wondered after such attacks.
In the years that followed Rofes tried to build a broad based movement for gay men’s health. He was keenly aware of the need for social movements to support broad based struggles for social justice. When I interviewed Rofes for my dissertation, he helped tease out the relationship between embodied experience and the history of struggles for pleasure. Rofes saw that the role of the gay liberation movement was to reject notions that pleasure should be considered a peripheral component of social movement activity. Rofes helped me think about pleasure and play as strategy for organizing. “Play is a term for drag, ACT UP zaps, the use of food in the Latino Community, the use of dance dramaturgy, culture jamming, the carnival, and other forms of creative community building activities,” he helped explain to me, as we talked. Thus, play is the exhilarating fun, the pleasure part, the joy of building a more emancipatory, caring world. Rofes would point out that humor, drag, eating food together, cultural rituals support activism. “Ultimately, does a sober form of organizing appeal to more than white people in a sustainable way?” he asked. We concluded that play was part of expanding networks, social capital, and friendships extended around activism.
(see interview transcript below). As we walked away after the interview in the West Village, Rofes said to me that he felt like a strange kind of survivor from a storm, from a different kind of era. Many, many of his friends had passed. AIDS was still around and so was Rofes, who had recently gotten tenure at the school where he happily taught and wrote.
That Spring of 2005, Rofes wrote that his life was a success despite the losses. “Recently I attended a dance party, one of the many evenings of intense music and cavorting available to thousands of gay men in my city each weekend. I looked over the crowd of primarily twenty-something and thirty-something men, shirtless, gyrating, arms reaching to the heavens. I thought immediately at how the doomsayers criticize this population of young gay men, saying things such as, “I didn’t work my ass off during the past 30 years to create a culture of drug use and unprotected sex and self-centered me-me-me attitudes. This is not what the gay movement was all about....” And then I realized something, something surprising and simple. As someone who has spent the last 30 years working on gay liberation and AIDS activism and sexual liberation, what I saw before me was precisely the world I was trying to create. When we fought during the 1980s and 1990s to prevent gay men’s sexual cultures from being destroyed, when we worked to preserve certain values about gender play, friendship, and erotic desire, when we quietly worked behind the scenes to ensure that certain spaces would survive gentrification and public health crackdowns, we were fighting to preserve the ability of new generations of gay men to create worlds of pleasure and desire. As I looked out over the sea of dancing men, I realized, despite all the battles we’ve lost in terms of politics and discourse and the media, gay men and gay sexual cultures had managed to survive and, indeed, thrive.”
The last time we saw each other was last Spring during the Pacific Sociological Association Meetings. In between a tour to Slammer’s sex club in West Hollywood we talked about other heroes of the movement who were facing their mortality. Rofes
was always concerned about AIDS, but none of us know how we are going to go out.
Eric Edward Rofes was 53 years old. He is survived by his long time partner Crispin and friends from around the world. He will be missed.
I just wanted to express my profound sadness upon the loss of Eric. I was fortunate enough to be a student of his during his first year in the Education department at Humboldt. Though we had differing points of view on many subjects, his intelligence and warmth made him an instant favorite of mine and I learned more from him than any other professor in the program. He will be greatly missed.
Many of us who were Eric's friends from his Gay Community News, Fayerweather Street School, and other of his many circles in Boston, NY and elsewhere gathered yesterday for the memorial service in Provincetown. It was a lovely Jewish service with very moving comments by his friends and Crispin. Many of his friends had seen him very recently and commented on how happy he was.Everyone is glad to hear there will be memorial services in other cities, and one is being organized in Boston. Eric had so many talents and wonderful qualities. The one I appreciate the most was his ability to keep his friendships alive through the years, and always be there to be helpful and encouraging. In our movement where the focus has been shifted by the media to our 'stars,' Eric was a planet: grounded and dependable and life-supporting. I hope everyone can get to share their memories of Eric at a memorial service or with others, as we all did yesterday in the place he loved so much and died peacefully in. Maida Tilchen, Somerville, Massachusetts
Maida Tilchen
Eric was my gay hero of the eighties. We worked together on several committees during the early BLGPA days. His commitment to human liberation helped spawn an awareness of necessary issues in our community. His sincerity in caring was contageous. He modeled what it really meant to be `human'. God took him from us so She must have other plans. He will sweeten the earth, as he has always done, with his essence and his corporal being will be sadly missed.
I was surprised and deeply saddened to hear of Eric's passing.
I first met Eric in the '80s, shortly after I came out, just another geeky BU undergrad. He was breathtakingly handsome and sharp and I was in awe (and remained so for all the years I knew him).
I was fortunate to work with Eric on a couple of committees; he suffered no fools and I have vivid memories of him cutting me down to size on a couple of occasions.
He was the first leatherman I ever knew, although our acquaintance never even progressed to a point where I could broach that topic. I wonder what he would have thought of the journey I took.
I think he appreciated my work in mainstream media. I was lucky enough to interview Eric a few times for various features and have in my book collection a couple of signed books from Eric.
He fought for our political rights, our right to great sex and our right to joy. He was an inspiration, always. He will be missed.
boslthrman@aol.com
To most of the world, Eric is known as an author and an activist for gay rights and social justice. For those of us lucky enough to work with him where he taught and wrote at Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, Eric Rofes was a life force. As we gathered on Tuesday night at Maria’s home we talked about the chasms that have opened on our campus with Eric’s passing. More than any other person on campus he has worked systematically to build institutional change for social justice – from his work in Education to Multicultural Queer Studies, from Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies to the Environment and Community Program, from Leadership Studies to the University-wide Diversity Plan Action Committee. It will take the writing of many people at HSU to mark the unique contributions he has made.
Like many of us here I have learned so much from working with him. He modeled for us degrees of organization and productivity that I can only dream about. His meetings always ended on time with the agenda fully covered (in academia, that is nothing short of miraculous!). He knew how to dream and how to work to make those dreams come true. Just one of many examples of the kind of work he has done will give a taste of his impact here: he was the driving force behind the creation of the Multicultural Queer Studies minor, and he then initiated a network of faculty across the extensive California State University system that meets annually to share strategies, courses, and plans for LGBTQ Studies; this year marked the 3rd such meeting. One of his most recent dreams for HSU was to establish an activist center at the University to link up academics, activists, and students and to create a place where activists can come and rethink their successes and failures.
I always knew how special it was to be able to work with Eric – a seasoned activist who chose academia as one of many homes - and I valued his presence enormously. But now I am kicking myself for believing that I had years and years to work with him and learn from him. Since he died I have been thinking about everything I need to know that he could have taught me. I’ve been thinking a lot about his optimism that he brought to every meeting, every interaction. I’ve been thinking about his wonderful sense of humor and his subversive acts to foreground discussion of sexual pleasure in the often sanitized debates of academia.
He has left us too soon with dreams unrealized. It will take many of us working together to keep some of his dreams alive. His optimism will help to carry us forward, for above all, he believed in the human ability to make change and to do good work. I miss him dearly.
Kim Berry
Arcata, CA
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Eric was my teacher for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade at Fayerweather School from 1978-1981. As an eleven-year-old, I had the privilege of having a proud, activist gay role model at a time when most teachers were fired (as he had been previously) for coming out. We remained friends over the next 25 years—as all Eric’s pals know, he was a loyal and committed friend who took great pleasure in the strength of his friendships spanning many years.
People have written eloquently of his powerful critical thinking, his courage, his brilliant yet always accessible writing, his enormous influence on gay men’s health, and his commitment to progressive education. In addition to these, I will miss terribly his wonderful sense of fun, his great warm bear hugs, his rhyming Christmas cards, his love of food, his refusal to be culturally shamed for who he was, his openness about sex, the enthusiasm in his voice, and his total authenticity.
In life, he taught me many valuable things--among them, that being a writer was possible (our early success with The Kids’ Book of Divorce showed me just how possible it was); and that I, as a person in an opposite-sex relationship, could refuse to get married until marriage becomes a democratic institution. In death, he has imparted two more key lessons: Live as fully as he did, passionately and honestly and well; and tell your loved ones how much they mean to you--now. The funeral home yesterday was packed with shocked and weeping people; all of us, I think, were wishing we could have told Eric we loved him one more time.
Sarah Pemberton Strong
New Haven, CT
I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend and colleague. I had just exchanged several E-mails with Eric last week regarding the showing this past Sunday of the 1270 Boston documentary at Machine. Eric said he wished he could have been there to relive those memories.
Eric and I met in the late 70s while we were both a part of CGY. The Committee For Gay Youth. I was the only youth member of the Steering Committee on which Eric served as a leader and mentor.
Eric inspired me. I wanted to be just like him. I still do.
He stayed true to his calling in building communities and bringing people together, and never waivered in his dedication to change his small piece of the world.
I will miss him. The world will be a smaller and darker place without his light illuminating the way. It would take a small army to do what he did on a daily basis. He was unique, and I am grateful and blessed for having known him. He was a hero, a beacon, a role model for all of us. He has earned my respect, my love, and now my eternal gratitude.
Eric Rofes
I think it was 1994: I was teaching a class at Berkeley in the LGBT minor called Sexuality, Culture, Colonialism. There was one older guy in the class, bearded, with an intense look. He came to my office hours; I found out his name was Eric Rofes. 'Eric Rofes?' I said, 'like the famous activist
and writer?' He smiled and pointed to my bookshelf, 'Yes, those are my
books.'
I had been reading Eric Rofes since I was just beginning to come out and
had walked nervously into Boston's lesbian and gay bookstore in Copley
Square, emerging with a stack of books including his edited volume on Gay
Life. He had been my guide to the same, and here he was taking my class.
'You can't be taking this class from me,' I told him. 'You need to be
teaching it to me. You've been teaching me for years, through your work.'
In that class, Eric was interested in particular in Gil Herdt's work on semen exchange in
New Guinea: he wanted to use it to think about gay men and the importance
of sex in the creation of community. He was finishing the first of two
important books on AIDS and queer community. Eric was both learned and
pragmatic. He know an enormous amount but was incredibly modest. He had
been a leader of queer community in the two cities we had both spent much
of our lives in, Boston and San Francisco. I came to realize how central
Eric had been in the creation of many of the political, pedagogic, and
community institutions I took for granted in coming out in Boston, in
confronting what was then still a brand new epidemic, in making schools
and colleges safe and creative spaces for queer kids.
In San Francisco, Eric along with Gayle Rubin and Allan Berube had founded
a study group, Sex/Politics, that brought together some of the leading
activists, organizars, artists, and scholars in the Bay Area. So many of
us through Eric became involved in Sex/Politics that a spin-off group,
Sex/Politics II, was created.
Eric always linked activism around race and class to queer community and
AIDS prevention. I remember intense discussions over the complicated way
middle and upper class privilege asserted itself in the working class
stylization of some in the bear movement, and debates on whiteness as
unmarked privilege in both queer life and queer organizing. Each of these
conversations was never simply academic but linked to networking, to
groups actively creating change, and to publishing and outreach.
And then there was Eric's active work in changing American education, from
his years of work as teacher and administrator in Boston area schools like
the Fayerweather in Cambridge to his dissertaion, which I had the
privilege of serving on, on Charter Schools and their possibilities and
politics. He went on to combine being a Professor at Humboldt State, work
here and around the country and the world, remaining an active force and
inspiration for myself and many of my friends.
I am writing this in India, in a small town, far away from San Francisco
but feel the shock and sadness of his loss acutely.
Lawrence
For the Boston memorial service for Eric Rofes (date and place TBA), Susan Fleischmann at Cambridge Community TV has offered to produce the photograph show and a CD of it that can probably be sold as a fundraiser. Send preferably digital and some print/slide materials to Susan Fleischmann at susan@cctvcambridge.org Please do not send your only copy, and if you need it back, make sure it is clearly marked with that instruction and your name, address, phone, and email, and return SASE. Please do not send materials that cannot be used without obtainable copyright permission. Please pass this info on, thanks. I, Maida Tilchen, am coordinating the Boston photo show, so contact me otherwise.
Please accept my sincere condolences on the death of Eric Rofes. I have long found him to be one of the most perceptive and down-to-earth of gay writers. His advocacy of alternatives to puritanical, "one-size-fits-all" AIDS education and prevention efforts was emblematic of his robust good sense. Despite the cruel losses that he and the rest of us suffered in the 1980's and 1990's, he never retreated within himself, but unflaggingly kept thinking and writing on how the gay community could make life better for itself. That, and serving as a one-man Anti-Defamation League.
He was found surrounded by books and his laptop; which is to say, continuing the endless battle in his own way, according to his talents.
--"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."
I wanted to give my condolences to Crispin and Eric's family. I never met Eric, but I knew Crispin well from his work in Connecticut.
I wish him the best in this very difficult time. We are a caring community, and sometimes, in the heat of politics, I think we forget that.
When things like this happen, I believe in the greater good in our community, because I see people reach out and I see the caring in people's hearts.
I won't be able to attend the memorial service in San Francisco on July 15th, but Crispin, I will most certainly be there in spirit.
Bill Cannon
Coventry, Connecticut
While I never met Eric, his partner and companion Crispin Hollings my co-worker, spoke very fondly and highly of him. My deepest and heart felt sympathy to Crispin and Eric's family in this moment of pain and sadness. I hope that you may find comfort in the fact that Eric is in a place now that is free of hate, predujice, pain and suffering.
I took my first and only class with Eric in fall of 2006 at HSU. I have never been the same since. Eric taught me to not only question things and perceive education through a different light, but how to implement and believe in the changes I wanted to see. I'll never forget the day I met him and how intimidated I felt, but how quickly I realized through his joking that he liked my name (which is Erica) that he was just a big old bear with a gigantic heart. I'll never forget how he ordered pizza for our class under the name Boris but didn't tell the student picking up the pizza that he had done this until she returned saying there was no pizza under the name Eric. I'll never forget how hard he worked at creating a sense of community in our class and how this will carry on in many of us. He taught me about Highlander and LGBT issues that I thought didn't pertain to me. He taught me that I am not bi-racial because race does not exist, but that I am me and have a unique ethnic identity. He taught me to belive in my writing and how to use it as a vehicle for liberation. He did all of this in the four short months that I knew him. What he has done for society and the world in his 51 years has yet to be fully recognized, but will carry on and impact more lives than I think we will ever understand.
Thank you, Eric
I just wanted to say that I knew Eric for a very short 3 years. He and his husband Crispin were the first people that I met in Humboldt County when visiting and deciding whether to move here from LA. Eric recognized my partners and me as out-of-towners and reached out to us. We were moved by our instant connection and they contributed to our decision to relocate.
Over the past 3 years Eric has been my mentor and changed my life in ways I never thought possible. He inspired me to be more that just a participant in the queer community. He motivated me to take an active role in shaping my community. He made me realize that one person can change the world. Eric's work in the Gay Men's Health Movement taught me to be proud of myself as a gay man more than just being out of the closet, to let go of shame surounding sexuality and desire.
Eric, I thank you for all the gifts you gave me!
I will miss him dearly and I will continue to be inspired by all the amazing work that he has done in the GLBTIQQ and HIV/AIDS communities.
Michael Weiss
Arcata, CA
Eric
Sad that i never meet you,i do know Crispin for many years and i feel deeply for his lost,me and my family send our deepest condolences and may God find it in his heart to give Crispin and Eric family and friends strngth to go foward.
Juan Colon Jr,and Family
While I never met Eric personally, I knew of him through Crispin Hollings, his partner. I feel I have a better understanding of what Crispin and Eric had from reading the many wonderful tributes on this site. It is truly unfortunate that someone so special was taken so soon. I cannot express enough how I wish I could help to alleviate the pain Crispin and Eric's family must be feeling. Crispin, please know that I am here for you.
Much love,
Lisa Angeloni
Eric was my teacher in the elementary credential program at HSU in the 2001/2 year, the year of 9/11. It was wonderful to find a fellow freak in the capacity of professor. As one of the two gay/bi students in my class, he invited us to meet privately in his office to discuss any issues or joys of being queer in the straight teaching world. I enjoyed this connection. During that visit, he showed me his compilation of essays about gay men talking about lesbian sex. His essay, "The Ick Factor" gave me delightful insight into who he was. How many professors would speak so openly about gay sex and being a leatherman.
I have struggled with how out to be in my work and have only done so selectively for fear of alienating the straighter folks that I work with. I admire his public identity as a gay teacher and activist.
The Education Summit at HSU, which happened through his visionary thinking, has continued to be an amazing community-building experience.
When I was troubled in my first year as a teacher, it was to Eric that I turned for support.
I've been out of touch with him for awhile and regret that the world won't have this wonderful man. Blessings on your journey Eric and my deepest sympathy to Crispin.
Crispin,
Please accept my heart felt sympathy,and know that you and Eric's family are in my prayers.
Jeff Raggette
I'd known Eric for the past 32 years (egad!), in a variety of roles: as students at Harvard College in Leverett House, reading his early work as editor / contributor at Boston's GCN, following his early activism in Boston and his nascent writing career: anyone who writes a book entitled "Socrates, Plato, & guys like me", about his experience as a schoolteacher in Boston, is not lacking in self-esteem, but it was well-earned and informed by his hard work and constant activism and was tempered by his warm and cuddly demeanor and quick, sunny smile. He taught a course on sexual politics which my partner attended at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in the mid-80's before Eric moved out to the West Coast.
Up thru the mid-90's, I would run into him often in Provincetown or out in San Francisco at various street fairs, bars or bear events, or by chance on the street, and even though we were not close friends, I guess it would be safe to say that given our shared history in some very different arenas, we were Longtime Acquaintances, and when we would cross paths over the years, he always greeted me warmly, as if I were a younger brother, while I always walked away amazed that he, an Important Person in the gay community well before the Internet became ubiquitous, always somehow recognized and remembered me.
Having heard this sad, surprising and sobering news, I realize just how long it has been since we last crossed paths. I've been lax, and now it's too late.
Eric, frater, ave atque vale.
/Steve
I'm very thankful that my journey intersected with Eric's, if only for a little while. And it is painful to accept that our paths won't cross again for at least a little while longer.
Eric and Crispin were two of the first friends we made when my partners and I began our move to Arcata. Instant rapport, instant connection! And over the last 3 years, a true and growing friendship.
Eric was larger than life and yet so simply down to earth in heart. It was his encouragement that inspired Michael and Todd to host a queer-oriented website and publish an online queer newsletter. In fact, Eric suggested the name "MALEBOX 101". Once again, Eric helped inspire community building, even here in the sometimes insular queer community of California's North Coast.
This week, I spent more than a few hours in my greenhouse after work de-flasking and potting up my orchid seedlings. In the quietness and rhythm of that work, I felt the impact of Eric's life and death in a deep and personal way:
....how he invited me to participate in a round-table discussion on "creativity", based on my interests in hybridizing orchids; I had to cancel as I finally got a job and couldn't get time off the first week...
.... how he held my hand and walked around the Arcata Plaza with me for a whole hour during Gay Pride festivities when Todd and Michael were busy "running the show" so I wouldn't have to hang out alone
.... how he challenged me to be true to my own sexuality and humanity, even though in so many ways I'm VANILLA, and Eric (and my partners) were/are so NOT VANILLA;
.... how BIG I thought his feet were when he'd come for dinner and take off his big red/orange Converse tennis shoes upon entering the house....How could someone so large have such a gentle yet intense spirit??!
....how much I admired him and how much I will miss him.
My heart goes out to Eric's family and most of all you, Crispin!
I feel your loss and sorrow, and I will miss Eric always, ever thankful that for just a little while, I knew him as a true friend.
Joel Bollinger
Fieldbrook, CA
I actually worked with Eric on the 25th reunion for Commack High School on Long Island ....Or shall I say I worked FOR him.....Eric was why I swore I'd never be on another reunion committee again. He micromanaged the micromanaging....
There were times I thought I might @#)*^$@ followed up with &%#!@#% Ahhh...but there was a way to figure him out and simmer him down. That led to our friendship.
Even at the reunion, he sent me to various school mates insisting I welcome them. First he'd fill me in on where they had been, so I could be more "scripted".
I commented to him on how amazed I was that everyone in attendence was so successful. He gave me that smurkie look and said, "Did you really think people with depression and suicidal tendencies were going to show up here?"
Ummm...guess not!
It also led to an understanding of what an activist he was, and his ability to have a god--zillion irons in the fire all at once and track each one.
Brilliant guy...and eventual friend.....A connection that is so rare as we go on in life, although we'd shared out growing up years in Commack, a great community.
He and Crispin had these Christmas cards made every year. They mapped out what they had accomplished and where they had traveled. I had to save all these cards because they are unique, wonderfully made and gay.....
Having had open heart myself...I wonder if he had symptoms, if this was avoidable, you get the picture.
Eric fit more into his 50 odd years then most who live way into their golden, golden years. My heart (literally) goes out to his Mom who has had enough loss....and to Crispin, his life partner.
Anyway...We go forward....
And my constant analagy of this is that we go forward differently, a little bit fractured...but we do go forward.
I hope to read other stories of "Rofus encounters"....for me it was of a 3rd kind.....For sure...
He and his family are in my prayers....I will never forget him....
Our thoughts and prayers are with Crispin, Eric's family and the community he was so active in. Crispin, through our own conversations and reading on what an accomplished individual Eric was, it is clear why you are so deeply in love with him. You shared your adoration for this man and have learned life lessons on the journey with him that many will never realize in thier own lifetime. The beauty of the gift's that you received from Eric, is your ability to share them with the people you come in contact with. This gift to you, and your own passion to continue will forever keep Eric's passion and spirit alive and well. May you find peace and solace through family, friends, and the community.
Jim & Family
Eric Rofes was one of the first to notice and write about how bareback sex (anal sex without a condom) had become a sexual turn-on for many gay men as a reaction to incessantly negative HIV prevention messages. Rofes was very brave to share his personal sexual feelings about bareback sex, but I do not recall if he ever disclosed having bareback sex himself. It is tragically ironic that his death appears to be unrelated to sex because he made an academic career out of analyzing the socially constructed equation between premature death and gay anal sex.
I will always appreciate Eric Rofes' willingness to share his own personal stories when analyzing the ethnographic implications of HIV and AIDS. For example, in his 1996 book "Reviving the Tribe: Regenerating Gay Men's Sexuality and Culture in the Ongoing Epidemic" he explained how when HIV first surfaced he disliked having anal sex. Rofes graphically described restricting himself to only oral sex, which fortunately for him, as we later learned, had a very low risk of transmitting HIV. Two years later in Rofes' 1998 book, "Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures" the section "Learning how to fuck again" (pp. 267-302) described how at the age of 40 years-old he confronted the years of negative messages and started fucking guys again as a top, which has a lower risk of HIV infection than receptive anal intercourse. (My initial and unedited thoughts about Rofes' contributions and death are in my June 27, 2006 blog entry.)
We offer our condolences to the family and friends of Eric. In the pain of his passing we are hopeful there will be time to celebrate the life of this very accomplished man and the gifts that he must have brought to those around him. Our hearts and prayers go to his lover and friend Crispin.
Kevin & Vienna
Eric...Derrick...Merrick...I loved to pull the old Endora on you when we first met. I didn't know you as well as many, and I had a different perspective, geting to know you through Crispin and through your friends. The network of love and support was evident from the first Thanksgiving meal. I was lucky enough to spend many of my Thanksgivings with Eric, Crispin and some of the most interesting, kind and caring people I've ever met. Thank you Eric, for opening up your heart and home to me and letting me get to know you. Perhaps like everyone else, I took comfort in knowing that we had a special understanding...You left an indelible imprint on the lives of so many and helped countless others by giving them the strength and courage to be themselves. You set an example, to stand up for that in which we believe, and to open up our hearts and minds alittle every day. You will be missed, but never, ever forgotten. We are all somewhat different but significantly better off having had the pleasure of calling you our friend...
I first met Eric in Montreal in the late 1990s. Back then I was a conservative young law school student and Eric was in town for an education conference. We had corresponded for several months by e-mail after I drew on Eric's sex panic theories for a research paper I was writing on censorship laws. We had a memorable dinner at a Thai restaurant, and a heated debate over private schools. I was for them and... well you can guess the rest... I remember very fondly my halting efforts after dinner to suggest a good leather bar in Montreal's Gay Village to Eric. In forgiving Eric style, without being condescending, he just smiled at me and said, "I think, I can manage to find it!"
Over the years we continued to correspond by e-mail after I moved to Israel. Eric was very excited when I married my boyfriend in Toronto and by our ongoing lawsuit in the Israeli Supreme Court. I was looking forward to seeing Eric again on my next trip to San Francisco. I am deeply saddened by Eric's death.
Jonathan
Tel Aviv, Israel
054-202-0152
I loved having Eric in the Humboldt queer community because he was so good at making connections and brought wonderful lesbian-feminist speakers here.
Sue
And I'm also forwarding a message from a friend who doesn't have email:
My life was positively touched by Eric when I had the honor of studying in the teacher credential program when he was there. He was charged with eloquent, all-embracing impartings that dealt with diversity. You could lose a night's sleep from excitedly pondering a lecture from or discussion with him. He was a powerhouse of activities that bore many fruits of his labor, yet he gave full attention to whoever he was with. When I experience a human being like Eric, I'm glad I'm a human too.
Thank you Eric
Karin Glinden
My deepes sympathies go out to Crispin and Eric's family. Reading through this blog has given me a better understanding of the individual that meant so much to his partner, Crispin.
Brian Lammers
I have had the honor of working with Eric since 1999 when he joined our faculty in the Department of Education at Humboldt State University.
I deeply valued Eric as a friend and colleague for his penetrating insights, his ability to cut through the verbiage and get to the heart of an issue, and his willingness to speak the truth even in difficult situations. He was a man of enormous intelligence, energy, vision, and talent.
Those of us who worked with him in Education also learned to love Eric for his goofy side – the impossibly funny postcards on his office door with his face inserted in each one, his Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers, his love of junk food, that grin of absolute delight he had, his practical jokes. Not many people can make me think and laugh in equal measure; Eric could.
I deeply miss him and grieve the loss of one who is, quite simply, irreplaceable.
The things I'll remember about Eric are his nudges. What I mean by that is that it is impossible to be complacent when working anywhere within 100 miles of him, literally or figuratively.
No matter how many things I did, I always knew he was doing more, working harder, and that was part of what I used to keep going.
I appreciate and agree with Cary Frazee's comment that we will all have to redouble our efforts in the fight for justice.
I did not know Eric long, but worked with him through California State University Queer Studies Consortium, and organization he helped found a few years back. I was impressed by his passion for social justice and a real willingness to help build bridges. This was so apparent in his work with CSU-QS, facilitating the gathering of faculty from across a system as large as the CSU. I will miss seeing him at our annual gathering and only hope that we in CSU-QS can do the kind of good work he modeled. My thoughts are with his husband, family and friends. He will be missed by many.
Dave Reichard
San Francisco, CA
Death is not an end,
but a journey home.
Someday, you'll be
reunited with your
loved one.
Until then, your loved one
will live on in your heart,
for those we've truly loved
could never be forgotten.
And I hope that the
love you feel will
give you strength
through these difficult times.
Have faith that the sun
will shine again.
I first Eric at a conference in Ottawa in the mid 1990's and was immediately struck with his passion,I have worked closely with Eric, Chris Bartlett and T.Scott Peques on mnay gay men's health summits and that passion was always there. Let me tell you it was not always a bed of roses as Eric could be very demanding and be reprimanding you minute for something and then the next saying "Okay Doll lets get on with it". Eric taught me so much and became a very close friend and mentor in the years we worked together. I was to assist with the Leadership Academyin California in March 06 but I suffered a massive coronary (my 2nd) and have open heart surgery thereafter. The last communication I had from Eric was three weeks ago in which he was glad I had written him to update him on my health because he was getting concerned and I also told him about a project was heading up for the Anglican Church to be launched at the Int'n AIDS Conference in Toronto on Stigma and Discrimination and his comment was "they couldn't have chosen a better person to head the project" but he didn't want me to overdo it.
Alot the tributes will deal with Eric's accomplishments in life of which there were many but the most accomplishment in Eric's life was his relationship with Crispin. It was always a joy for me to see these two men together and the way they looked at each other you could tell they were much devoted to one another and very much in Love. I don't think any of us can imagine what Crispin is going through these days, He is much lost, missing his soulmate and lover and trying to cope day to day. Crispin is now the one our attention muct focus on as he will need our love, support, friendship in these difficult times now and to come down the road. I would also like to convey my very deep sympathies to Eric's Mother and to his brother Peter.
Many of you will have encountered a new term and that is KADDISH and I though so that you have a better understanding of the Kaddish that was said in Provincetown this might help:
Yeet'gadal v'yeet'kadash sh'mey rabba…
A mourner says Kaddish after the death of a parent, spouse, sibling or child. A person says Kaddish for a parent for 11 months during daily services (held three times per day) where there is a minyan present. For all others, Kaddish is said for only 30 days.
Beyond this, Kaddish is recited every year on the day of the Yahrtzeit (Hebrew anniversary of death).
Those who are unable to fulfill the obligation of saying Kaddish with a minyan, can arrange to sponsor someone to do it on their behalf.
The soul of a person lives on after death, and every year (on the anniversary of death) the soul of the deceased has a new “judgment,” a new opportunity for eternal elevation. Since the deceased soul obviously cannot do good deeds in this world, the “judgment” is based on deeds that the person’s loved ones are doing in his/her memory.
One important way to elevate the deceased’s soul is by saying Kaddish. Kaddish does not mention the dead, but is rather a praise of God. We declare that even though we have suffered a loss, we acknowledge that God knows best, and we place our trust in Him.
By saying Kaddish, it is considered a merit for the deceased to be the cause, so to speak, of having this praise of God expressed publicly.
Kaddish is one of the ways, along with studying Torah, giving charity, performing meritorious deeds -- in your loved one's name -- that you can do to make a real difference to someone for eternity.
The saying of Kaddish directly across from the Western Wall is one of the most meaningful ways to show your love and we appreciate you entrusting us with this holy task.
Kaddish is the traditional mourner's prayer, evoking our deepest faith
and hope. It is considered a merit for the deceased to these
words expressed publicly.
If you are unable to say Kaddish three times daily with a minyan,
we can provide you with the peace of mind,by having Kaddish said by a
dedicated young Torah scholar at the holiest place in the Jewish
world: directly facing the Western Wall.
Eric went in probably one of the most beautiful ways and that was he went to bed and never awoke but of course it is most difficult for those left behind. My dear friend you are now at Peace and will never be forgotten. I love you greatly and will always be there for Crispin.
Shalom Gordon Youngman,Vancouver BC
Dear Crispin and Family,
I am not sure if I met you, Crispin, unless you were at the first meeting of CSU Queer Studies folks in Humboldt. Regardless, please allow me to express my most heartfelt condolences for your deep loss.
All of us in the now vibrant CSU-Queer Studies Consortium owe much to the passion, vision, and temerity of Eric Rofes. I remember the feelings of excitement and hope that came over me when I first received the invitation to attend, and then my amazement over the next few months as Eric's (and Nan's) organizing expertise fleshed out what the meeting would be about. The long weekend we spent in Arcata was much more than even the grandiose ideas I had before my arrival. We all connected, comiserated, generated plans, and left feeling more like part of a system than we ever had.
At Chico State, we used the documents that Eric made available to all of us to propose and get approved a new minor in Sexual Diversity Studies. He saved us dozens of hours of work (at least), but more importantly, he made us see what was possible.
Now we have a state-wide consortium, and this last year Chico State had the honor of hosting the annual meeting. There we honored Eric and other key players with a CSU-QS bag, a small symbol of our undying gratitude and respect. I know that this is only one small area of his work, but it means so much to me personally and professionally, and it literally has changed the lives of many students, staff, and faculty on this campus.
I have proposed that the next CSU-QS be dedicated to Eric Rofes. Truly we need a space where we can continue to think about the ideas he espoused, like his dream of a system-wide shared major.
I miss him, already, despite knowing him so little. I hope to always keep what he gave me, the hope and the drive to change this little part of the world.
Sincerely,
Sara E. Cooper
I was very fortunate to be a student who was inspired and challenged by Eric. I will forever be changed thanks to Eric's ability to push his students to think... I mean REALLY think. Not to restate the thoughts of others or things you read, but to consume, digest, contemplate and form your own perspective. I feel deeply saddened for the loss all of us are experiencing, but I also celebrate the impact Eric had on those around him. Like a pebble dropped in a still pool, Eric will continue to change the world through the lives of those he touched. We are all better for having known him.
MICHAEL
I vividly being with Eric and other leatherfolk at a leather caucus/workshop during the March on Washington in 1993. He was teaching us how to be out as leather people, to feel no shame for our desires. I remember how frightened I was, as a bi wiccan polyamorist socialist anarchist feminist facing yet another coming out experience and how much love he gave me then and how much courage he inspired in me. He didn’t always ‘get’ bisexual politics, AND he often got it more than many other gay men or lesbians. I can’t even tell you how many times Eric stood up for us bi’s in places where it really mattered.
My first memory of Eric is as the only man in my aerobics class at the Art Gallery in Provincetown during the winters of 1983-5. I had no idea who he was as a teacher or activist, he was just another quiet sweaty creature working out humbly as part of our chatty women’s group. Years later we realized we’d both been there in that beautiful Cape Cod queer sanctuary working on our writing, learning our crafts.
Eric’s brilliance in organizing the LGBTI health summits and the gay men’s health summits is one of his most valuable contributions. I loved the one I attended and presented at in Boulder where he and the rest of the community were so committed to making it an experience where providers and researchers were on a par with activists and patients, where no one’s privilege or authority drove the agenda more than another’s and where all the various sex/gender groups and orientations were supported in brainstorming our own priorities and action steps. The hottest workshop there, one he participated in fully, was called T for Two and involved female to male transfolk and gay men talking about their desire for and experiences making love with and understanding each other: just the kind of incredible intellectual and emotional exchange Eric thrived in!
Last week I kept weeping and yelling at him, "don't go, don't go," but alas he is in the beyond and it is just me being reminded, by his absence, of the preciousness of every every moment of the life we all have here.
I was with him just a month ago in NYC at a national moral values summit called by the Nat'l Gay & Lesbian Task Force where we enjoyed sitting together at one end of the table. We had just shared an outraged groan at someone across the table who was invoking the "down low" as justification for why black women get AIDS at a high rate. The guy seemingly didn’t understand any of the context of racism or the closet and I was furious he was blaming black men for their own oppression. "Get a grip, get a grip Loraine," Eric laughed softly, knowing i was ready to jump across the table and pop the other white guy. This is my last memory of Eric. I still can’t believe he’s really gone. I am inspired to be a better sex radical and scholar because he lived.
Loraine Hutchins
www.lorainehutchins.com
Eric was my best friend for several years during a time of great change and growth in my life. I was pretty ignorant of all his work in various gay communities. I didn’t see him as a famous person and community leader. I saw him as a friend, as a big teddy bear that went to bed earlier than anyone else I knew, but also got up earlier and accomplished so much in a day. He was my pal. The pal that invariably dropped significant quantities of his meal on his shirt. I loved him for being so real and so human – and so vulnerable. He was patient, loving, and encouraging with me. He shared his world with me. I joined him on a trip to International Mr. Leather in Chicago one year and we laughed at the food line at the Bear event that weekend. We hung out at street fairs, coffee houses and his favorite restaurant, the Cove. He wrote amazing letters to me the year I retreated to a Buddhist monastery. And then wrote more amazing letters to me the following year when I headed off to Berlin to try out being the boy of an authentic German S&M master. Despite his incredible schedule and accomplishments, I knew that he would write a return letter within days (if not hours) of receiving a letter from me. I have to say that he was always there for all my extremes and all my searching. The only things he didn’t tolerate well were shopping and my bouts of self-pity. His generosity extended to opening his home and family to me and we shared Thanksgiving and Sabbath dinners. And the Grinch that Stole Christmas. His generosity of spirit touched me deeply and helped me to see the possibilities of human love and friendship. I’ll always love you, Eric. My heart breaks with the loss.
I also send my love to Crispin and to Jeff, Eric’s most recent best friend.
Mark Sponseller
While I never actually met Eric I felt like I was acquainted with him through his partner Crispin. I guess in situations like this you judge a person by the affect they have on their loved one. If this is true then Eric must have been a very special person to have meant so much to Crispin and to have provided him with such joy. My heart goes out to Crispin as I know this is a difficult time.
Kathy Cassley
Words can not minimize the pain caused by your loss, but always remember that those who have given us "great-happy" memories remain in our hearts and thoughts for a "life-time"!.....Olga
I am stunned to hear the news of Eric's death and inspired in learning more about his life. I knew him first as a student and, more recently, as a colleague in the field of education.
I am truly amazed to think of how many peoples lives he touched in his short time and in how many different, but ultimately related, ways.
My heart goes out to his partner, who I never met but who I know he loved dearly, to his mother and siblings whose pain I know must be great, and to his many friends and extended community who are feeling his loss.
Crispin,
Very sorry to hear about your loss.
I know Eric meant the world to you.
I never got to meet Eric, I just remember when you and I went on a business trip and you told me what a smart and lovable person he was.
I also remember when you two talked on the phone and could only imagine what a great relationship you must have had with each other.
Again my friend, very sorry for your loss and I know Eric will look upon you forever with love and respect.
Mike Taylor
My heart and prayers go out to Crispin. I was deeply saddened to hear of this tremendous loss from longtime pal, George Smith in Boston. Ironically, our publishing team had just discussed including Eric in a coffee table book - JUST AS WE ARE, by Charzette Torrence - due later this year, that highlights ordinary people who do extrordinary things. We were to contact him later this month.
I met Eric as a young, renegade out black lesbian in 1978, two years after I had come out. I was rambunctious and quite full of myself, having spent a couple of years running with my new found sexuality and ways of expressing it. Through CGY, I learned less destructive ways of self-expression. Eric, Alix and Cathy helped us young people grow into young adults with purpose. Through him, and the teachers he brought to the group (such as Clover Chango) I learned to express my thoughts and feelings on paper, through the media and on the stage. Because of his work at CGY (and later in supporting our work at BAGLY) I have some of the best memories of being an out gay teenager in Boston in the seventies and eighties.
Eric, we knew we had your support and we loved you for it. You helped us give a voice to so many young people who were struggling. You pushed us forward on TV, radio, and in the press and made others see the faces of their own children and opened avenues of dialogue that no one before. You encouraged us to speak up and out as delegates to the first National Organization of Lesbian and Gays conference at UCLA. I am certain that the work you helped us do saved many a young person from living with shame, guilt or dying because of it. I am so grateful to have known you and even more grateful for the desire you instilled within me to create change in my own small part of the universe. You have been instrumental in the work I choose to do as both a writer and publisher. I will never forget you.
With deep gratitude for your life well spent,
Robin G. White, Co-owner
Lambda Literary Award-Winning, Kings Crossing Publishing, Atlanta, GA
www.kingscrossingpublishing.com
A friend told me of the recent passing of Eric Rofes and it immediately brought me back to what seems like another time. In reading many of the comments on his passing it is clear that most of you knew Eric Rofes while you were adults. Eric Rofes was my sixth grade teacher at the school, which many of you know, he was eventually fired from. He was probably the best teacher I ever had prior to my college educational experience, and also possibly the best including my college experience. I do not know that much more about Eric Rofes other than what I have read about his life here on these pages and what I remember from my own personal experience with him as a young sixth grade student. I just remember him as teacher that made learning fun. He was able to reach out to his students and make the learning process one that seemed to naturally blend with a child’s own imagination. I recall how he was able to inspire all of us in his class by writing an “illustrated history book” in which he injected himself as a sort of fictitious, narrating character, popping up in history through out time. By creating this sense of personalization, we all imagined ourselves living in these past times as well. What could be a more inspiring way to teach history to a sixth grader? I also remember the real sense of energy that he put into his work along with his sense of humor, both of which made our sixth grade experience a better one.
I also recall the controversy when the school became aware of his political activism related to his sexuality. It was a big “event” for all of the adults and parents, and from what I can remember, it created a great division amongst them. It was the event that got him fired from his teaching job. As students, none of us knew anything about these other subjects, or anything of Eric Rofes’ non-teaching life. To us children, it was not important to us what he did when he was not with us. To me personally, I could not really understood why a good teacher would be fired in the name of the children, for something that did not impact us as children. We certainly did not feel victimized or betrayed. We simply knew him as Mr. Rofes, our teacher, and we liked him.
In looking back on it now it seems that as a sixth grade, the controversy was the beginning of the jolt from the innocence of childhood, on into the new and unfamiliar world of adulthood. It almost seemed like the first event in the event of passage for me, and in many ways from what I have read of Eric Rofes, it may have been an event of passage for him too. After the “controversy” had been “exposed” to us children the school year never seemed the same. He was not just our teacher any more and we were all aware of another bigger world out there that we didn’t really understand. We also all would be graduating and going our separate ways after the end of that year, and all of this represented a great change in our little lives. For me, it was a real turning point and we all went on to other places, lost touch with each other, and became whomever it was that we were to become, including Eric Rofes.
I knew Eric a bit through his fine work on charter schools and educaiton reform . . . and was clueless about his many other accomplishments and contributions until this week. It was a pleasure to work with someone who was deeply committed to both carefully framing research questions and engaging the research in an unbiased fashion--traits that are all too rare within the education research field. His incisive intellect, willingness to question assumptions, and thick skin will be missed. Deepest condolences to his loved ones and family.
-Eric Premack
I knew Eric a bit through his fine work on charter schools and educaiton reform . . . and was clueless about his many other accomplishments and contributions until this week. It was a pleasure to work with someone who was deeply committed to both carefully framing research questions and engaging the research in an unbiased fashion--traits that are all too rare within the education research field. His incisive intellect, willingness to question assumptions, and thick skin will be missed. Deepest condolences to his loved ones and family.
-Eric Premack
I just read of Eric's passing. I am having a difficult time grasping it. To lose a person this articulate and passionate about education is hard enough, but this was so unexpected. I had the pleasure of working with him in the Education Summit he and Humboldt State have sponsored for several years. His contribution to the charter schools movement and education reform begain when he was a graduate student. His loss is OUR loss.....he will be sorely missed as both a colleague and a spokesperson.
My deepest sympathy to his family, loved ones and friends.
Alice Miller
Director, Information Management
California Charter Schools Assoc.
I have the proud distinction of not only having been one of Eric Rofes' 7 & 8th Grade students, but also of being currently employed at the same school - the Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge - which was one of the first elementary/middle schools in the Northeast (if not the first) to welcome and hire an openly gay man to teach. The year was 1978, and Eric was that teacher.
It was especially shocking to learn of Eric's fatal heart attack, especially as he had very recently re-engaged with the school, eager to lead workshops in the spring on Progressive Education - and surprising me by even expressing an interest in possibly teaching again at the middle school level.
Eric could be an inspired teacher, and made a profound impact on us as students - whether in attempting - with at least partial success - to make the Fall of the Roman Empire more entertaining by illustrating it with entire armies of his "Little Eric" self- caricatures; or by coming out to us formally each year in anticipation of his high-profile gay rights activist work, to preempt any confusion or questions new students might have (and of course in the process open up a venue for discussing broader issues of sexual identity, sexuality, adolescence, and other topics that are now simply a part of the school's regular "Growth Education" curriculum).
Eric kept tabs on many of us through the years, and maintained many solid friendships with former students. While he and I were not extremely close, we got news of each other or saw each other through mutual friends, or during his return visits to the school. He was always quick to ask what for some of us might have been silly or embarrassing questions (particularly coming form a former teacher, to, say an 18-year-old) like, "Do you and your girlfriend have vaginal intercourse? Do you use a condom?" Such questions were not the least bit silly to Eric - he by that point knew that it was a matter of life & death, and wasted no time getting to the heart of the matter when it came to young people potentially at risk.
I am now told that Eric had long been aware that, based on his family history, he might not make it much past the age of 50, and therefore from his mid-30's or so considered himself to have already passed "middle age". Surely this explains, to an extent, his extraordinary determination and productivity - many lifetimes' worth of work, it seems -in such a relatively short life.
Just exactly a week before he died, I got into the first real "grownup" conversation I'd ever really had with Eric - via email - about professional relationships, difficult personalities, families, etc. It was tremendously satisfying to be reconnecting with Eric after so long, and starting up a dialogue as something more like friends or peers. Eric spoke of slowly coming to grips with certain types of relationships in his life. This then resonated just days later with Eric's friend Tom's comments at the funeral, regarding Eric's proclamation on the very day he died, that he had Figured It Out - "It" being a kind of broad reconciliation of different parts of his life - notably, making it possible to share his time between the East & West coasts, and seeking to own a small property in Provincetown as a summer writer's retreat spot tom return to each year. In this particular email string with me however, Eric especially commented on what he perceived as my insight about people & relationships, which he said it had taken him until only recently to begin understanding for himself. He closed by saying, "I don't know where you got all this wisdom from, I'm just glad you got it."
I'd like to come up with some schmaltzy Hallmark card verse about the Special Teacher who gave me that wisdom, but I think Eric would turn in his grave. But there's no doubt that he was one of the very most important teachers I ever had. My time in his classroom at Fayerweather in those years was perhaps the happiest time in my life. (This in face of the fact that my parents were divorcing!) It had to do with being involved in a community that felt & functioned like an extended family. For Eric, his extended family most substantially became the gay community. For me it was the school where he taught us.
Eric and I shared an appreciation for the often sick humor of Edward Gorey, collections of whose dark pseudo-children's books (of admitted questionable appropriateness for a weaker-of-heart12-year-old) lined the classroom shelves along with "The Sword In The Stone" and, of course the "Little Eric" Fall of the Roman Empire. The hands-down favorite Gorey piece among students was the Gashlycrumb Tinies, in which an alphabetical list of hapless tots meet their untimely demises by various nasty methods.
Students sometimes express affection for their teachers in odd ways. I was nothing if not subversive, following my then-hippie, anti-establishment dad's lead in challenging Eric on minor points like, should I have to do homework, or study math. And so it was with gleeful abandon that I set about creating a parody of the Gorey book, with the help of some of my classmates, called "E is For Eric", in which every single rhyming couplet and accompanying illustration(which far exceeded the 26 in the original) featured Little Eric expiring in one or another unpleasant, yet amusing, fashion. The only example I can think of off hand at the moment featured first the image of a serpentine lake creature, reading:
"E is for Eric,
swallowed by Nessie"
Followed on the adjoining page by the depiction of a domestic interior smeared and cluttered with all manner of random bloody gore:
"E is for Eric -
the scene was quite messy."
Not only was Eric entertained at the time by this morbid - and seemingly endless! - "tribute", I was years later quite tickled to learn that it earned a place of honor in a special room in Eric's house, among other treasured gifts from former students.
Eric gave so much - I am stymied by reading the biography pages on his web site. He will always be fixed in my mind as Eric the 8th Grade teacher, though I realize that was only a few short years out of, and only a small piece of his life, during which he was simultaneously out there doing, and then continuing much more and greater work - all his activism work, his many books, his University level teaching, and, by all accounts, the degree to which he lived life to its very fullest on a personal level.
So, schmaltzy hallmarks aside, what can I say? If only I could publish a final installment of "E Is For Eric"- one last sick joke, of which I can tell you right now Eric would heartily approve (as he would the pun): an illustration of "Little" Eric grasping his chest and keeling over dramatically, tongue out, eyes X'd out. I'm tellin' ya, he would laugh so hard it'd damn near kill him.
Goodbye Eric, I'm so disappointed that we couldn't pick up the conversation that it felt like we were just beginning, but in your passing you are bringing together all these members of your extended family, and mine, and showing us the ways in which they are and have always been inextricably interwoven. We'll miss you, but we'll feel as though we're with you as we gather to remember you and share stories and tears with each other. And with that, I can only conclude:
E is for Eric,
who knew from the start
His own ending might come
from his own great big heart.
-Brian Claflin
Cambridge, MA
I first met Eric at Gay Community News in Boston. It must have been about 1978 or so. I was a young, newly out, budding activist from a tiny town in Maine. Eric was my role model and later my friend. We worked together on the March on Washington and traveled together to LA as delegates to the first National Organization for Lesbians and Gays conference. We shared some wonderful dinners. We went to funerals together as our friends began to die of AIDS. After the murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone I listened to him rant about Dan White's "Twinkie Defense" as he sat... eating Twinkies. Sadly, we lost touch when he moved to the west coast. Then, one day about 10 years ago I was standing on the Mall in Washington with my partner and our two daughters at a Names Project Quilt display and there was Eric. He wrapped me in one of his famous bear hugs and started yacking away as though no time at all had passed.
Eric, the world will miss your warm smile, your passion and compassion, your wacky and irreverent sense of humor, your amazing intellect, and those bear hugs. So will I...
Kathy
We had the pleasure to meet Eric, at a Christmas gathering a few years back. His love, passion and professionalism he had for his career and relationship was exceptional and unforgettable!!! Our thoughts and prayers are with Crispin and Eric's friends & family in this moment of pain and sorrow.
Sincerely,
Mary Mutti & Family
It just feels like I know Eric forever - He was one of the first people I met because of the epidemic - in the early days we worked hard together to raise money and awareness - Eric was like my rock - I was scared and when it got too much he always helped me back to the fight. We gossiped about people from the past and I truly enjoyed him. The news of his death is a shock. It seems like just a few weeks ago on Castro Street in front of the bank - we stopped and caught up and of course gossiped. I will miss you dear Eric.
Eric was my good friend of many years. He added a dimension to my life on a regular basis that enhanced my soul. Although we did not always agree on everything, the strength of his convictions commanded my respect and softened my sometimes overly opinionated stance. He cared. He was bigger than life in so many ways. I can’t believe he is gone and that I will never again receive another letter from him. He was an outstanding writer and shared his experience, strength and hope in articulate and thoughtful ways. It was an honor and a privilege to be his friend. I am grateful for the short time we had together, and I will miss him forever.
I was a few months younger and one grade behind Eric at Commack High School North back on Long Island. I didn't really know him before beginning high school, but did get to know him quickly as we traveled in the same extended group. I can vividly recall him, grinning and beatific, sprawled out in the most comfortable seat available, surrounded by a bunch of really nice kids at a series of somebody or other's birthday or cast parties. He was a lot more civilized than I; no doubt I would have done well to have paid better attention to his manner of communicating with people. When a small group of us went to Madison Square Garden in 1970 to see Sly and the Family Stone and Rare Earth -- my first concert in NYC -- Eric was with us.
While we haven't often keep in touch directly since our school days together, Eric and I had both known since the Eighties that the other was out here in northern California, and I, for one, was tickled to know that I'd ended up in the same part of the world as someone I'd always so admired. Having a foot in the publishing world myself, I've always kept an eye out for what Eric was up to with his books as well as his teaching. I often thought of him in the wake of 9/11, during the period when my wife Shari and I were organizing the nation's first No Name Calling Week, inspired by James Howe's The Misfits. (Thanks to GLSEN, it's now an annually-celebrated national movement: www.nonamecallingweek.org.) It's a terrible loss to have Eric gone so young, but as with Jerry Garcia, Eric will undoubtedly remain alive as long as any of us are around. Matter of fact, I'll conclude with a Robert Hunter tune that always gives me comfort:
Down the road to Union Station running through the fog
I thought I saw Joe Hill last night grinning like a dog
"I understand they did you in for everyone to see"
He smiled - shook his head - "that's a lie," said he
"I been on a mountain top observing from a cloud
Been in the hearts of workers milling with the crowd
My tears are shed for freedom and equality of means
My blood and perspiration oil the gears of your machine"
Down the road again
Down the road again
Down the road to Massachusetts driving through the night
I thought I saw Jack Kennedy hitchhiking by a light
I hit the brakes - backed up slow, and Kennedy got in
I said, "It's nice to see you lookin' back in shape again
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they gunned you down"
He just shook his head and looked off sadly with a frown
Said, "bullets are like waves, they only rearrange the sand
History turns upon the tides and not the deeds of man"
Down the road again
Down the road again
Driving down the road all night, the sun is rising red
Reciting songs and stories, conversing with the dead
I pulled into Selma, low on gasoline
Been so long on empty, I been riding on a dream
The fellow at the station looked like Martin Luther King
"You're low on oil," he said, with an old familiar ring
"How far to the mountain, friend," I asked him face to face
"You're standing on it now," he said, "You just don't know the place"
Down the road again
Down the road again
Driving down to Fiddler's Green to hear a tune or two
I thought I saw John Lennon there, looking kind of blue
I sat down beside him, said "I thought you bought the store"
He said "I heard that rumour, what can I do you for?"
"Have you written anything I might have never heard?"
He picked up his guitar and strummed a minor third
All I can recall of what he sang, for what it's worth
"Long as songs of mine are sung I'm with you on this earth"
Down the road again
Down the road again
From the corner of my eye I saw the sun explode
I didn't look directly 'cause it would have burned my soul
When the smoke and thunder cleared enough to look around
I heard a sweet guitar lick, an old familiar sound
I heard a laugh I recognised come rolling from the earth
Saw it rise into the skies like lightning giving birth
It sounded like Garcia but I couldn't see the face
Just the beard and the glass and a smile on empty space
Down the road again
Down the road again
My partner and I are new residents to Seattle, and I was surfing on google to look for ways that I could start plugging in to the GLBT community. Having googled gay mens' spirituality and Seattle, I found a site with local bloggers. I was stunned to see a headed noting Eric's death.
My partner Jim and I had the great fortune to meet Eric when he was a visiting professor at Bowdoin College and we took an opportunity to invite him to our home. We soon learned of other connections that we had and that his partner, Crispin, and I had both attended UVA.
I was deeply moved by the opportunity to participate in Eric's research for his new book about gay life before the onset of AIDS. My brief, but treasured time with Eric has caused my to often reflect and act on ways to support our community. His encouragement and spirit will be the additional catalyst for me to do whatever I can to advocate and support the rights of GLBT persons.
Eric, you left us all better off for your living. We have much more to do in your absence. Much love and healing thoughts to Crispin and Eric's extended family.
Jim Fotter
Seattle, WA
Eric is simply my cousin, the second child of my mother's sister. i remember when he was born (i am 11 years older). i remember his playing little league baseball as a child, because his father was really into it, not because he had an baseball ambitions. i remember him (my most vivid and fondest memory) upstairs in my parents bed with his younger brother...they would have been about 6 & 7...the weekend of my brother's bar mitzvah...pete and i think it was eric that had tonsillitis. i remember him going off to colledge and getting sucked into the moonie trip...friends had to haul his sorry butt out of there before he was totally enmeshed...i couldn't believe anyone so totally brilliant could have been pulled in like that. and then he wrote about it. he could scarcely believe he'd been pulled in like that. i remember him sitting in the living room of my aunt's house in commack, with his arm across the back of the sofa,when i returned to new york for his sister's funeral. i remember the last time i saw him, when he stayed at our house. he was here for a charter school conference.
Eric was many things to many people, touched many lives in many ways, and was so accomplished in so many venues. But he was, to me, simply the sweetest, kindest, gentlest member of my family. He will be sorely missed by all of us.
Ellen Bober
Arvada Colorado
There will be a service to remember and honor the life of Eric Rofes in Boston, on July 20th, Thursday, 7pm, at the First Church in Boston, U-U, 66 Marlborough (at Berkeley) in the Back Bay.
I have been wrestling with Eric's passing for the last almost two weeks, and it seems like it can't possibly be two weeks. You'd think after this time that I'd be able to be more eloquent in my words, but I feel like I am in murky water and I can't quite formulate my thoughts. I apologize in advance.
Eric was this person that continually amazed me. I knew him through being a colleague at Humboldt State, a reader of his books, a fellow queer in academia and someone who can't even call myself an activist while contemplating all of his accomplishments.
Eric was a force, of activism, of change, of creativity, passion, and love. I have to admit that I WATCHED Eric, I watched how he led groups, how he facilitated important conversations, how he moved many of us in the directions we needed to go. His ability to think so incisively, to name things, to point a direction for the future were inspiring. I often felt shy in front of Eric because he was so dang excellent at what he did. I always had things I wanted to ask him, i was usually too shy. But when I did ask, he was always right there with feedback, with insight, with help.
I think what I most valued in Eric was his incredible love and grace. He consistently met us all with compassion and full attention. When we talked, he was really seeing me - how rarely that happens in today's world. What I think most is how he will leave this huge hole of not only leadership, but compassion and focus.
As I wrote to Crispin, my spiritual faith is that our souls are here until we learn whatever lessons we need to learn, or have the experiences we need to have. Unfortunately, we were not done with him. I had a list of things on my computer to ask him for our next talk, for pete's sake! And there is no doubt that those who shared their hearts with him, were definitly not done. For me, the lesson is to be much more active about those things I care deeply about, and to stop doing all of the unnecessary things that I get roped into. And, of couse, more than anything, BE KIND.
My heart continues to ache for Crispin, and all of those who loved Eric. In community, Jennifer
Tina really misses Eric...
We were close friends since we were twelve years old -- We even dated in Junior High School -- We came out after college and came back together in a friendship that lasted the test of time. I adored him and learned so much from him. I could be totally free with Eric. Share the most intimate secrets. Debate the most controversial subjects. Laugh over the most mundane things. Those are the somewhat selfish reasons I loved him. Of course he was also the most outstanding leader we have ever had in the GAY RIGHTS CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. We need to recognize him for all that he has given us. Eric was about making us count. It is now time to make HIM count - to make losing a great GAY HUMANITARIAN mean something beyond recognition in obituaries. As I wrote to Crispin - Eric was the equivalent of our Martin Luther King - think about it - he did so much on so many fronts - and has left us with a remarkable legacy. So, where do we go from here? I think the first step we must take is to create a proper homage to this GREAT MAN. Eric was foremost an educator and he deserves a special place in the world's history books. Gay Pride - that was Eric. He showed us the path to diginity. It isn't enough to just miss Eric in our lives - his death is a MILESTONE - and we must show the world that we truly care about our leaders.
When I first met Eric it was in a leather man’s workshop and he took my breath away. I loved his voice, he was so stunning, so tall…..so hairy! Woof all around. That was back in 1989. Then, when I was actually fortunate enough to get to know him I got to see that his outer beauty (yes beauty) paled in comparison to the man inside. He was an incredibly intelligent man with a great sense of humor and who weathered his own storms and used those experiences to help others, me included. And, thank God, for some reason he took a liking to me. I enjoyed Eric throughout the years, drifted sometimes and leaned on his hairy shoulders from time to time too. I was so fortunate to have such an expert on the Aids crisis as a friend. When a very close friend of mine died Eric was writing “Reviving the Tribe”. He took time to sit with me and talk, to help me deal with a situation most of us know all to well. He will never know how much his guidance helped me and his friendship meant to me. I will miss him dearly. I never knew Eric’s family but my prayers go out to them. My thoughts are with Crispin now. I know he has a vast support network and that friends will surely circle the wagons around him to help him through this. These two beautiful people spent 16 years together and their love held strong; they were still in love like newlyweds. On Friday nights Eric used to get all excited because he got to have dinner with his husband. I guess Fridays were their regular date night. So cute to see that big guy all “giddy” in anticipation of his time with his lover. He was inspirational in so many ways and of course can not be replaced. I will always treasure the time I got to spend with Eric and the friendship that I was gifted to experience.
The news of Eric's death has affected me profoundly. When someone in mid-career who has accomplished so much, with so much potential for the future, is cut down, the tragedy is all-too reminscent of all those lost to the pandemic, against which Eric worked so tirelessly.
I was proud to be able to honor Eric's memory on June 28, two days after his death, at a San Francisco Public Library program, "Pages from the Past," a series curated by Michelle Tea in which local queer writers/performers read from the work of deceased writers. I read "What do With the Rage and the Fury This Time?" Eric's powerful passionate polemic about the revisionist history following Ronald Regan's death. His anger, mixed with my sadness, made for a poignant presentation.
I last saw Eric when he was leading one of his walking tours of San Francisco bars and sex clubs South of Market. His humor and historical perspective, his professionalism and passion made the haunted buildings come alive with the ghosts of all those who had sought pleasure there.
More recntly we corresponded by email about his promised contribution to the collection of personal essays I am currently co-editing with Katherine Forrest entitled "Love, Castro Street". The anthology will be diminished by the lack of Eric's voice.
I look forward to honoring his memory at the upcoming memorial here in San Francisco, and offer my sincere sympathies to all of us who were part of Eric's "family."
Jim Van Buskirk
To Crispin:
This is a message from John Hogarth on behalf of the Operational Excellence team at United services. We want to express our sincere regret for your loss and hope that our short message will help in the healing process.
Our thoughts and well wishes are with you.
i am so deeply saddened.
but i am all the more invigorated to pursue projects we'd launched in mind and through planning to create the change (and then some) this world needs and that is the imprint of his beautiful legacy.
i miss my friend.
I met Eric when he first came to SF to run Shanti. We instantly became friends. While Eric had many accomplishments. I believe ability to make and keep friends was the one he cherished most. He put a lot of time and effort into friendships. He did not take them lightly. His friends were important to him and he never forgot them, no matter how busy he was or how far away. There was always a post card, an email, something to let us know he was thinking of us. He thought his friends could do anything. One of Eric's goals in life was to be a good friend. Clearly from the outpouring of love, he was very successful at it.
The side of Eric I knew, was the silly side. The man who did his holiday shopping in September from a stack of mail order catalogs. I remember the year he ordered everything from the photo catalog. Every gift had a picture on it. There were mugs, jigsaw puzzles, Christmas tree ornaments, 3-D pictures, calendars, aprons etc... He got such a kick from the things he found he those catalogs and joy in giving gifts from them. He loved The Simpsons and South Park. Loved breakfast at the Cove,(window seat of course),lighting the heifers at Thanksgiving, UNO, walks through the Castro--"Okay we'll walk up to 19th Street, cross the street and go back" Eric was very precise in everything he did. I'd tease him that he'd schedule time to be spontaneous. He thought it was strange how the Christians just tossed their trees on the street the day after Christmas. Eric was bright, but he could be as silly as a five year old.
I remember asking Eric what he's going to do in his old age. He said "There are so many books to read". Eric died suddenly but he died happily, and that gives me some comfort. He was in Provincetown, a place he loved where some of his fondest memories and closest friends lived. He met Crispin there in 1990 and he died surrounded by books.
I'm going to miss him, especially as I age. Never could get Eric to ski, scuba dive or anything athletic, but I always thought he'd be the perfect old age companion.
I was a student of Erics at Berkeley in 1996, and I had the honor of reading with him on a panel of queer writers at the West Hollywood Book Fair last October. Eric invited me to have lunch with him a few months back and encouraged me to keep writing. As we ate he tipped back in his chair and told me how much he was enjoying his life, splitting his time between SF and Humboldt, the little motel he rented when he was teaching, and I just felt his gladness. Eric is the ONLY writer I know who is utterly without ego. I was blessed to have known him and I will miss him deeply. I hope the news of his death will result in the queer community reading his work.
-Philip
When the Boston LGBT community judged me by my initial appearance (ultra-femme) and then almost dismissed me as a powder puff, Eric must have seen some potential inside, as he nurtured the activist within and convinced me to take the opportunites that presented themselves.
Granted, I wasn't out there creating legislation or ministering to others, but I was creating various venues in which LGBT people were free to be themselves and celebrate their pride.
Eric still saw this as important... enough so that he brought me into BLGPA (Boston Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance) and to the NOLAG conference in Los Angeles in 1981.
In all possible ways, Eric was my mentor. Watching Eric, it was clear that he always operated from a place of love -- not anger, not self-entitlement, not a grab for power. I believe this was a good lesson to learn. As my friend Teddy Witherington is fond of quoting, "Amor vincit omnia - Love conquers all." (Virgil)
I knew Eric through good times and bad, for both of us, and both of us always managed to find each other time and again, either on Castro Street or during the Pride Parade.
I'm immensely proud of Eric and everything that he's accomplished. I'm thankful to have known someone like Eric who managed to always look to the positive and proactive. And I'll miss reminiscing with him about our days in Boston.
Crispin, my heart is with you.
--Marsha H. Levine
Eric Rofes returned the word "Valiant" to my vocabulary. He didn't swerve from his beliefs. He spoke loudly on testy topics and perspectives, not because it was "edgy" but because he actually believed in telling the truth about his feelings.
Eric was incredibly supportive of my writing (especially when I stuck me neck out) and I was a profile subject for the book he was working on when he died. I'm stunned as we all are, and seriuously believe we have lost a singular voice.
"Reviving the Tribe" remains for me one of the most important gay sociological/community writings of our generation.
Mark KingFt Lauderdalemarksking@aol.com
From the epic Beowulf to the National Enquirer, Eric's reading interests were wide-ranging.
I worked with him at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in the late 80's where he lead the fight for our rights in the face of AIDS and governmental indifference to it. I am a better person for knowing him.
Inquiring minds want to know, though: Why did you have to leave us so soon?
xo, doll
Karen Aitchison
San Francisco
I only had the pleasure of meeting Eric once, but it was definitely profound. I met him at the CSU Queer Studies Consortium up in Chico, just this past April. When I got the new of his passing, I knew the world lost a great mind, but someone who made such an impact that his legacy will carry on. Fortunately, Eric co-presented a workshop at the consortium meeting which I attended and gained a lot out of. I was marveled by his speaking, passion, and contribution to queer studies and movements, both academically and personally. Although I managed to only spend a couple days in Eric's presence, I know he is someone I shall never forget.
Thank you Eric for all of your hard work and for the many battles you fought along the way.
All the very best,
-Peter
I was a student of Erics in the early 80s at Fayerweather, and he and that school really saved me. I remember he really listened and gave kids credit for having real opinions. And as a child of gay parents, his openness really helped me feel I belonged.
This was originally posted as part of my own blog.
----
If you enjoy sucking cock, taking it up the ass, or otherwise find yourself in wild abandon as a homosexual, you need to grieve this week at the far too soon departure of Eric Rofes. Eric died Monday night while in Provincetown. He was a mere 51 years-old and I suspect he was in P'town writing something to shake up the gay establishment once again. If not the gays, then someone else was going to get ruffled with the logic that Eric used. From where I sit, Eric was easily the deepest thinker on the gay political landscape. That his political roots sprang, in no small degree, from sexual liberation made it all the better.
Brilliant is the word I'd use to describe this handsome man. Also wise, determined and political in his approach. I had the great pleasure of visiting with Eric and his lifetime partner, Crispin (what a hunk!) at their home tucked away in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco on a couple of occasions. I remember thinking to myself how it felt like I'd finally arrived, to be summoned to a meal with Eric. Eric took me seriously as an activist and I was truly flattered with the compliment. We eventually worked together to organize conferences under the name "Sex Panic."
What made Eric different in a movement seemingly over-populated by opinionated activist's? Others could get more press, raise more dollars, and publish more widely read books, but Eric, well, he was simply the smartest thinker at the table. He could speak honestly about the gay male experience because he had lived it to the fullest. I imagine his experience of being fired from a teaching job in Boston for being gay was a transformative experience. It was something we never discussed, but something tells me Eric took from that traumatic moment a determination to transform his world. His world being that of a leather-loving, bear-loving, twink-loving, gay citizen, determined to challenge his brethren to consider the possibilty that we could live in a better world. Far too unique to Eric was his insistence that the things that make gay culture special and unique, including our unbounded praise for sexual lust, could be used to liberate the greater world.
A memorial service is planned in San Francisco on July 15. Other services are being planned in other cities. If you can't make one of the memorial services, just make sure to have some hot, wild sex and don't forget the contribution made by Eric in making sure we all felt good about getting off.
Eric was one of the first people I met as I was coming out as a gay man, when we worked together on the Domestic Partner's Campaign in San Francisco, Prop. K.
Passion, strength, and a strong sense of conviction are what I remember most about Eric, as well as his caring and nurturing side.
Now living in Vermont, I find many people here who were also touched personally by Eric and his work. We'll miss him dearly, and I wish the best to Crispin.
Eric Rofes help me catalize my entry into the leather community nearly a decade ago. While our interaction was never physical, he encourged me to find a community locally and changed the path of my life in a positive way. I was happy to meet him several times at various events around the country.
He will be missed.
I was shocked when I came home to find Eric had passed. I had just exchanged e-mails with him a few days before. Such a sudden loss, and a shock. My consolation is that his was definatley not a life wasted. He contributed so much to our community and the world. He not only worked for change, especially with gay rights, but he taught others how to organize to create change. I met Eric through his Education for Action class while I was a student at HSU, and he taught me many of the community organizing skills that I use today. I not only use them, but I pass those skills along to others. The vision that comes to my mind when thinking about Eric's passing is many fires. There are many fires that he has lit across this world. By teaching, inspiriation, and creating change. Fires of many kinds, sizes, and strengths. And although that original flame is no longer accessible by us, it continues on in all those fires that light the darkness in our world.
I mourn in Eric and friend and a mentor. But celebrate what a wonderful person he was, and all the impacts he has left us with.
Having always been the black sheep of our family I must admit to having been resentful when at about age 17 my cousin Eric came out and usurped my position. But as we grew older and Eric became a pillar of his community and I became a Realtor I was able to regain my original status in the family.
I will always remember Eric as a truly kind ,funny, and great man.
He was, I believe blessed with the ability to be comfortable with himself and accepting of others.
Warm regards to all Eric's friends, students, clients, readers,buddies and pals.
Eric's cuz,
Mark Landsman
I saw or heard from Eric one way or the other regularly over the years since I met him in 1973. We were never super close friends, but had so much/many history and values in common that I always felt quite close to him when I saw him. He even had a nickname for me, "Dee-Dee."
I met Eric when he was a freshman at Harvard when one of his roommates, Blair Axel, was a good friend of mine from high school. I was a junior at Brown in Providence and came up to Cambridge to visit Blair in the 1972-73 school year. A few years later, when we were both edging out, Eric was in a groovy group house in Somerville and I remember playing feminist soccer with him and others at the field at Tufts. We tried not to worry about who was better and definitely didn't keep score. I remember going to at a movie showing Eric organized at that house in Somerville, about men taking responsibility for violence against women.
I was a volunteer at GCN when Eric wrote under the pseudonym Eric Rogers and remember the big deal when he began to use his real name. Soon after he was the Arts Editor for the paper. After the GCN period when I didn't live in Boston, I'd run into Eric at International Mr. Leather in Chicago and demonstrations in DC. I saw him when he was in Madison checking out their Ed School as a place to apply for a teaching position, and reading from Dry Bones Breath. We chatted at some point about why he went to get an education degree, and this is worth repeating, because I haven’t seen it in any of the obituaries. Eric said teachers change kids’ minds, and a good teacher can have a great effect on the world, by introducing kids to new ideas, accepting difference, etc. But, he said, any given teacher of kids can only effect a small number of kids: those he or she has in his or her classroom. So Eric thought he’d be a teacher of teachers, training a cadre of teachers who were open, questioned authority, homophobia, etc. and could pass good values on to many more kids. This of course is a paraphrase from many years ago. Eric would have said it all much more eloquently.
Eric helped put together a GCN reunion a few falls ago in NYC and I was in touch with him a bit about that. At his urging I spoke on a panel on "How GCN changed my life."
But the most amazing Eric connection is that I’m writing a book about the appeal of The Wizard of Oz of gay men and boys and Eric filled out a questionnaire for me. He actually got in touch with me, saying, in effect, "How come you didn't ask me to do you questionnaire?" I emailed back saying I had no idea he was an Oz fan. He gave me some quite amazing answers about the gender politics of the Oz books. This is some of what he said. It is so frank and open and out there. I don’t think he’d mind my sharing it.
“[T]hese books told the story of a small group of misfits who claimed and enjoyed identities that seemed at odds with the staid and regimented identities of “normal” folks, who were pursued and persecuted. They found creative and daring ways to escape this persecution and, at the end, often ascended to positions of glory and respect in their culture. As a child who was bullied for being gender non-conforming (girlish, non-athletic, studious, emotional) and who often felt trapped and without recourse, these stories offered me a happier ending to my own story. I remember being struck than when my Oz pals triumphed, they were never vindictive or vengeful. I wished I would be that way, but I was exploding with rageful fantasies of what I would do to my tormenters if I were ever crowned ruler of the people.
Something about the power dynamics of these Oz stories collided with my emerging erotic desires and played a shaping role surrounding things like control, domination, and submission. A lot of my early kink fantasies involved power exchanges between me and strong female authority figures and, while many of the Oz women were more androgynous than some of my fantasy figures, the evil females in the Oz books—seemingly omnipotent females out to control and dominate—became an early part of my imaginary desires.
I loved that, in the Oz books, whether the protagonist was male or female didn’t matter. The boys were girlish, the girls were boyish, and there was a radical gender bending going on there that I could relate to. The way I see it, certain kids’ books work to support hegemonic gender (and other) identities. I never really got into the Hardy Boy books, for example, because I didn’t identify as a traditional boy and didn’t want to learn to be one.”
For the first week after the news I thought about him a lot. I even made some fitful attempts to reach early Harvard roommates, Blair Axel and Michael Friedman, and Cathy Greeley (sp?), the only name I remember from the Somerville house, without much luck.
PS Hi to Steve Dyer and Richard Jasper.
I saw or heard from Eric one way or the other regularly over the years since I met him in 1973. We were never super close friends, but had so much/many history and values in common that I always felt quite close to him when I saw him. He even had a nickname for me, "Dee-Dee."
I met Eric when he was a freshman at Harvard when one of his roommates, Blair Axel, was a good friend of mine from high school. I was a junior at Brown in Providence and came up to Cambridge to visit Blair in the 1972-73 school year. A few years later, when we were both edging out, Eric was in a groovy group house in Somerville and I remember playing feminist soccer with him and others at the field at Tufts. We tried not to worry about who was better and definitely didn't keep score. I remember going to at a movie showing Eric organized at that house in Somerville, about men taking responsibility for violence against women.
I was a volunteer at GCN when Eric wrote under the pseudonym Eric Rogers and remember the big deal when he began to use his real name. Soon after he was the Arts Editor for the paper. After the GCN period when I didn't live in Boston, I'd run into Eric at International Mr. Leather in Chicago and demonstrations in DC. I saw him when he was in Madison checking out their Ed School as a place to apply for a teaching position, and reading from Dry Bones Breath. We chatted at some point about why he went to get an education degree, and this is worth repeating, because I haven’t seen it in any of the obituaries. Eric said teachers change kids’ minds, and a good teacher can have a great effect on the world, by introducing kids to new ideas, accepting difference, etc. But, he said, any given teacher of kids can only effect a small number of kids: those he or she has in his or her classroom. So Eric thought he’d be a teacher of teachers, training a cadre of teachers who were open, questioned authority, homophobia, etc. and could pass good values on to many more kids. This of course is a paraphrase from many years ago. Eric would have said it all much more eloquently.
Eric helped put together a GCN reunion a few falls ago in NYC and I was in touch with him a bit about that. At his urging I spoke on a panel on "How GCN changed my life."
But the most amazing Eric connection is that I’m writing a book about the appeal of The Wizard of Oz of gay men and boys and Eric filled out a questionnaire for me. He actually got in touch with me, saying, in effect, "How come you didn't ask me to do you questionnaire?" I emailed back saying I had no idea he was an Oz fan. He gave me some quite amazing answers about the gender politics of the Oz books. This is some of what he said. It is so frank and open and out there. I don’t think he’d mind my sharing it.
“[T]hese books told the story of a small group of misfits who claimed and enjoyed identities that seemed at odds with the staid and regimented identities of “normal” folks, who were pursued and persecuted. They found creative and daring ways to escape this persecution and, at the end, often ascended to positions of glory and respect in their culture. As a child who was bullied for being gender non-conforming (girlish, non-athletic, studious, emotional) and who often felt trapped and without recourse, these stories offered me a happier ending to my own story. I remember being struck than when my Oz pals triumphed, they were never vindictive or vengeful. I wished I would be that way, but I was exploding with rageful fantasies of what I would do to my tormenters if I were ever crowned ruler of the people.
Something about the power dynamics of these Oz stories collided with my emerging erotic desires and played a shaping role surrounding things like control, domination, and submission. A lot of my early kink fantasies involved power exchanges between me and strong female authority figures and, while many of the Oz women were more androgynous than some of my fantasy figures, the evil females in the Oz books—seemingly omnipotent females out to control and dominate—became an early part of my imaginary desires.
I loved that, in the Oz books, whether the protagonist was male or female didn’t matter. The boys were girlish, the girls were boyish, and there was a radical gender bending going on there that I could relate to. The way I see it, certain kids’ books work to support hegemonic gender (and other) identities. I never really got into the Hardy Boy books, for example, because I didn’t identify as a traditional boy and didn’t want to learn to be one.”
For the first week after the news I thought about him a lot. I even made some fitful attempts to reach early Harvard roommates, Blair Axel and Michael Friedman, and Cathy Greeley (sp?), the only name I remember from the Somerville house, without much luck.
PS Hi to Steve Dyer and Richard Jasper.
Dee Michel
Northampton, MA
deeamichel@comcast.net
Scholar
Humanitarian
Activist
Friend
This is how many people would describe our friend Eric Rofes. But did you know that Eric was “International Mr. Sweater” for 2004, our last reigning sweater title holder? A title that is coveted by many gay men in the San Francisco Bay Area (actually, about 10 at last count, and coveted is stretching the emotion just a bit). The IMS title was something that Eric (along with some other close friends) dreamt up to celebrate our Christmas Holidays together and poke a little fun at the many, many leather titles that seem pop up every where. The event started out as simply dinner together at a nice restaurant, wearing our finest sweaters. It morphed into full blown competition when participants started shopping for sweaters in an effort to out do one another. I myself went all the way to Milan, Italy, to find this special sweater. Crispin, on the other hand, managed to wear the same black sweater every year, swearing that he was the only one true to the Sweater Movement. Crispin insisted that he wore his sweater all the time and for any occasion, and the rest of us were merely committed to wearing new sweaters once a year.
At the height of the IMS Movement, a dozen of us met at The Twin Peaks Bar on Castro Street for cocktails and then a promenade (in our prized possessions) through the neighborhood and over to The Catch Restaurant for dinner. The paparazzi (actually our lovers) seemed to magically appear snapping photos along the way. After a wonderful meal and during desert, each one would model their sweater to the joy of the participants and the amusement of the other patrons and the restaurant staff. We then voted on the best sweater by secret ballot (and our waiter and some of the patrons were also asked to vote). We were judged not only on the sweater, but our style of presentation. This was more than enough to bring out the ham in Eric, and I must admit, out of ME too.
After 6 years of competition and some extensive research to choose just the right sweater, Eric became the title holder in 2004, and I captured second place with my Milano creation. Eric and I were committed to turning this grass roots movement into an international competition that would rival IML in Chicago. But we could never get our tongues out of our cheeks long enough to reach that goal. But for that one evening, we were all gathered together feeling very good about ourselves and about each other, enjoying our camaraderie and poking a little fun at the rest of the world.
This is just a sample of the memories and personal history that Eric helped me weave during our friendship together. He was my best friend, my confidante and my safe place. Although I was aware of his many worthy accomplishments, and the controversies that often resulted from such wide spread exposure, none of that ever entered into our friendship, we were just good buddies. Our loyalty to one another was above question and our bond was almost instantaneous from the moment we first met. We taught each other quite a bit about aging gracefully, with dignity and a sense of flare; and what being good, loyal friends can really mean to one another and to others who shared our lives. Because of his very busy and demanding schedule, I did not see much of my friend. But we made sure that the time we did spend together was of good quality, even if we just were hanging out together gossiping over a Chinese chicken salad at our beloved Cove Café or terrorizing not so innocent boys on the patio at The Eagle beer bust. Our bond remained strong and resilient, and it remains strong today.
I was honored when Eric asked to interview me, and my partner Bob Hayn, for his “70’s” project. As I retold my journey through the 1970s, with Eric’s coaxing and questioning, I realized these were truly defining moments (both good and bad) that brought me to San Francisco and made me who I am. I suddenly understood how vital this history, my personal history, is to me and how it is my responsibility to share it with those who are important in my life. The first time I danced with a man at Jim’s Backroom, a gay bar in Rochester, NY, is as significant as my first dance with a girl in junior high school. The decisions I made to leave Rochester and move to San Francisco for personal freedom had as much impact on my life as my decision to leave my home in Wilmington, Delaware, move to Rochester and strike out on my own. Both would provide new opportunities, new friendships and alter the course of my life. But I had never thought of these significant moments on equal terms until that interview with Eric. And now I realize that this has become his personal legacy to me.
At last years Dore Alley Street Fair, a young man suffered a heart attack while dancing in the disco area at the fair. Eric, along with my friend Frank Zanetti, another member of my extended family, witnessed this unfortunate event. The DJ stopped the disco music while the paramedics unsuccessfully tried to revive the victim. As the ambulance left for the hospital, Eric mentioned to Frank, “If this happens to me, don’t let them stop the music”. So I am asking you all not to stop Eric’s music. How? By taking the time to mentor those individuals who need your wisdom and who can benefit from your experiences; by remaining politically active during these trying times; and finally, by continuing to celebrate who you are and remembering those defining moments that make you strong and vibrant individuals: celebrate memories, like spinning the tale of International Mr. Sweater, 2004.
Thanks to everyone for their great stories about Eric. I want to post a few Eric memories that haven't made it on here yet. Eric was my editor when I first wrote for GCN in the mid 1970s. I was the "Foreign correspondent" writing from southern Indiana. I met him for real in 1979 at the NY and March on Washington marches. He encouraged me to move to Boston and join the GCN staff, even holding a party for the GCNers and others to meet me at his apartment. I've never been headhunted for a straight job like that, it was very flattering, and how could I not move to Boston after all that?
For a few years, Eric lived in a townhouse in the South End that his partner at the time was turning into a Victorian house museum, complete with handsewn velvet curtains and very dark, uncomfortable furniture. On what we Jews call Erev Xmas (aka Christmas Eve) Eric invited me and a few other Jewish friends over for a dinner in this most elegant setting. He did great turkey! I'd spend the night, a little creeped out by that creaky mansion. He also had Christmas day parties complete with authentic English treats like puddings made with suet.
I was reading through my journals for items about Eric and found one from 1982 or so that said "Eric was on the Phil Donahue Show today and he says that now he has fulfilled all his goals in life."
I really liked how Eric handled conflict and disagreement. In 1980, being new to Boston and broke from working at GCN, I had no vacation plans, but he invited me to stay with him in Provincetown. We had a great time, but he had a roommate for his rental who apparently broke some of the agreements they had made about the use of the space. It was a situation that would have made me furious, but Eric evenhandedly renegotiated. I told him I could never have been so nice about it, and he said, to paraphrase, "the situation is what it is, and I just want to work it out for the future rather than getting stuck on what we had agreed on and holding a grudge." That attitude has always been an ideal for me.
I miss Eric and thanks to all of you for all your great stories.
Maida Tilchen
Somerville, MA
I am in shock. I just sent Eric an email last night, excitedly telling him that my film was going to be shown in San Francisco in 3 weeks and how I was looking forward to seeing him and meeting his friends.
Then today, as I was telling the stars of my film about Eric and how he'd get to meet him in California, I found Eric's website....and discovered he had died.
Even though Eric and I ate breakfast almost every morning at Leverett House while we were undergrads at Harvard, I never knew he was gay!
When I next saw him 25 years later and told him that, he smiled and said, "NO ONE knew I was gay back then!"
He'd been invited to come to Key West [where I lived at the time] to give a workshop at AIDS Help, Inc.. I had a dinner party in his honor and he even managed to engage and entertain my then-10 year old son.
I last saw him at Ellen Langer's house in Provincetown two years ago, where he'd come to celebrate his birthday and where I finally got to meet Crispin.
What a sad, sad loss.
Love to Crispin and Eric's mom and the rest of Eric's friends.
First I want to extend my deepest condolences to all those, whose lives were touched by Dr. Rofes especially his husband, mother, and brother. I was a student of his in the Fall of 2005 in his Principles of Leadership course at HSU. It was my last semester at HSU and perhaps my most productive. I had been applying to law school and new I wanted to work in GLBT activism, but I didn’t know where to start. The world seemed so big and just too much to take in at once. Eric, along with one other professor at HSU, helped me the issues I was passionate about into action. He introduced me to the Task Force and I joined national organizations such as HRC and the Task Force. He encouraged me to go to law school in San Francisco because not only was his heart there (in so many ways) but it is there that the heart of the movement lives. I just moved to San Francisco at the beginning of the month and I was drafting an email to send to Eric to let him know that with his encouragement and confidence in me, I am doing it. I am pursuing my dreams and I am going to make a difference. Eric inspired me to work for what I believed in and taught me the practical skills in leadership to make my hard work effective. Though he left this earth too quickly, he leaves a strong legacy of passionate people who will continue not only his work but create the next generation of leaders and activists for equality. I mourn his loss as more than the loss of a professor, but I fell I have lost a friend who always had good advice for me and a guiding voice. The world may have lost his physical being, but his work, his impact, his spirit will live on in those he loved and those he inspired. Thank you Eric for all that you gave to your students, you didn’t just teach, you inspire.
i don't know what to say here . i know i must say something .i am , as we all are, left empty by eric's passing .i was a close friend of his and he helped me find so much of myself that i never even knew was missing .i am ashamed to say that i knew nothing of his work or teachings until after his passing .he never wanted any of that to get in the way of having a good time and i am glad that i was a friend who allowed him to escape from his reality of work and dedication to others, to a place where he could relax for a bit .goodbye eric...sorry i never told you how much i loved you.
I knew Eric from the various Bear community functions that he always attended and supported, from BearsSF Bear Rendevouz and Lazy Bear at Russian River, he'll be missed and remembered with Love always.
“Just Being Frank” Column in memory of Eric Rofes for The Arcata Eye published on Tuesday, July 11, 2006
by Nicole Barchilon Frank
You may not realize it, but if you voted for Kathy Marshall or Shane Brinton, or you ever supported alternative candidates for city council or the school board or you rooted for C.U.R.B. (Community United to Reduce Bigotry); you were moved by the unseen voice and hand of Eric Rofes. About seven years ago a group of concerned Arcata High students, teachers, parents and community folks got together to address the homophobia culture at Arcata High. We came together out of outrage and pain, devastated by the shortsightedness of the administration and the lack of vision and care provided for young folks there.
It’s a series of long stories, which you can read (should you so choose) in archived issues of the Eye. After a few years of beating our heads against the stone walls, we were feeling distraught. Eric agreed to meet with a core group of us and help us strategize about how to change the situation. After a few meetings with him we were re-directed and had a five-ten year goal. The long-term goal was to change the administration and school board population because we’d tried working from the bottom up and were just bruised.
Eric was pivotal in helping us understand that we would have to adopt a very different strategy and to approach our issue from the top down. He helped us direct our energy into finding alternative candidates who supported the loving, caring and deeply healthy environment we felt our children, their teachers and staff deserved at local schools.
C.U.R.B. didn’t last all those seven years, but those of us who began the work, carried our energy and strength into supporting bigger changes. I doubt we would have endeavored to reach so high if it weren’t for Eric. Eric was a man of tremendous vision and strength. I am so saddened to learn of his death. I will never forget him and his fierce energy.
Eric also brought so many extraordinary people into our lives through his Education Summits. One of those folks was poet Marge Piercy. In her book The Art of Blessing the Day she could have been speaking of Eric when she wrote the poem To be of use and these lines from it: “I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again…” p.73. The Art of Blessing the Day, Marge Piercy. Knopf. 1999
Eric was such a man and I will miss him terribly. The Jewish tradition teaches that when a person dies we can do good works in their name and donate to a cause to honor their work and memory. If you have ever felt unseen or unwelcome as a Queer person in this community or anywhere, Eric is someone who was always working for you. Even if you only have a dollar, or an hour to spare, in his name, give it to an organization working to make the world a kinder more loving place for everyone. Do it to honor a man of great and good heart.
Nicole lives in Bayside, shops in Arcata, works in Eureka, and hopes you will work on growing your kindness towards all humans and the earth along with her as you “harness” yourself to the work you are called to do. The Jewish mother in Nicole reminds you to always take a day of rest and get lots of Vitamin C in between your work to fix what is broken in this world.
I met Eric briefly at the Gay Men's Health Summit in Raleigh. I was impressed with his articulation of a radical, sex-positive, and holistic approach to health and community among men who have sex with men.
The announcement of his passing prompted me to wonder what other allies in the work are out there and how might we continue the work while nurturing each other, in the spirit of all of those who have passed on while struggling for holistic, social justice.
May Eric's spirit be at peace.
Herukhuti
Founder
Black Funk, a sexual-cultural center
http://www.blackfunk.org
I keep visiting these blogs and websites, feeling the Ericness he left behind. I miss looking at his email address in my address book and knowing that I can write him with a thought, question, idea and he will respond. I miss that he always remembered that I became a parent and that being a parent, being a fem, being political, being a whole bunch of stuff all just fit together. I miss him.
Friday, August 26, 2006
Dear Crispin:
I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, participating in an intensive Spanish language and cultural immersion program, when I read an e-mail announcing Eric’s death on June 26. I was shocked and deeply saddened by the news, and I just couldn’t believe it for the longest while. It still seems incomprehensible.
Please accept Rick’s and my sincerest condolences. We both respected and admired Eric greatly, and we will miss his presence here on campus.
In many ways, it is very easy for me to imagine Eric as still among us. I can readily see him wearing his red Keds tennis shoes or his green Humboldt State hooded sweatshirt. He seemed to prefer the casual look in order to downplay his imposing presence as a very tall man. I liked this sense of humility and enjoyed the lighthearted way Eric sometimes poked fun at himself.
Eric and I sometimes had philosophical and style differences that were a source of conflict with which I struggled. Nonetheless, it was always perfectly clear to me that Eric was a person with an important vision that he consistently endeavored to actualize.
I have long appreciated the writings of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who wrote that “purity of heart is to will one thing.” This quote came to my mind while I was in Mexico after learning of Eric’s death, and since that time I have frequently reflected on how aptly it applies to Eric’s life. His vision of social justice showed itself in his concrete actions on a daily basis. He lived and breathed social justice, and his work in so many spheres will undoubtedly be continued by those he so powerfully influenced and inspired.
It was always a delight to receive the personalized holiday greeting cards you and Eric sent out each year. The sketches of the two of you comfortably seated in your home reminded me of the sweetness and joy love between committed partners brings. I am certain that you hold many cherished memories of Eric in your heart, Crispin, and I hope that these memories will be a source of comfort to you in the months and years to come.
Affectionately,
Sally Botzler
(707) 826-3973, sjb3@humboldt.edu
I moved to Humboldt county last year. I began teaching history at HSU (Spring 06) and was interested in contributing to the Educational Summit. Eric became an instant friend and mentor. He welcomed me and made me feel so comfortable. I am grateful that I was able to contribute to the Educational Summit. More important, however, that I was able to meet, chat with, laugh with and enjoy Eric's company.
Although "straight", I have been a life long advocate for gay/lesbian rights.
Eric was a "brief" friend who will remain in my heart and mind for a lifetime. He is truly missed.
Melanie H. Vansell
I remember the first time I googled Eric Rofes's name, and my screen flooded with his work -- his many books, his articles, his leadership - and transformation - of national organizations, his diverse teaching. After I began working with him, I came to know his ambitious projects at HSU (the Ed Summit, Diversity Plan Action Council, Multicultural Queer Studies Minor, to name a few).
Sometimes I would sit next to him at a meeting or conference and be in awe of his energy, his leadership skills, his dynamism, his productivity, his eagerness to grapple with complexity, his humanity in the midst of so much that is inhuman.
But as much as Eric might inspire awe and even hero worship, especially in this time of grief and loss, I also think that he never wanted us to be awestruck or to make him an idol. He wanted us to get up, come together, and make change. He was happy to be the one to light the fire beneath us, but he wanted us to know that we could do whatever needed to be done. In the fabulous documentary "A Litany for Survival," poet essayist and luminary Audre Lorde tells a class of her writing students: Don't mythologize me. You have to find that place within yourself to create this work… I hear Eric saying this to us today.
While many of us saw him as this brilliant, courageous, creative, dynamic star in our midst -- he also made a point of identifying and nurturing that which is brilliant, brave, and creative in each of us, and asserting that that quality or perspective was key to the effort we were undertaking. "I'm a big fan of yours," he would sometimes email a student or colleague. "I want to hear your thoughts on this," he would say, and mean it.
Eric rolled into HSU like a tornado -- shaking things up but also putting things together in new and unexpected ways. One of the things he did best was bringing people together. He led, but he also collaborated, often bringing together people who might not otherwise connect. He was at the center of many efforts, but he was also delighted if something took off on its own energy without relying on his star power to drive it.
As just one example -- Eric collaborated to initiate the first ever meeting of queer studies faculty across the CSU. The first gathering was at HSU, with 13 campuses participating -- 5 queer studies professors from Bakersfield alone! This CSU-QS consortium now has a listserv, a website, an annual conference, numerous collaborations that have led to new courses, new programs, new scholarship. It thrilled him that this statewide effort pulled in new people and took on its own energy.
So where do we put our energy, our grief, our enthusiasm, our rage? There's an action table in the back and several ideas in the program, from donating to the Ronda Marshall Scholarship to volunteering for the Ed Summit to civil disobedience for marriage equality to becoming a teacher. We have information about the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Highlander Institute. We also have copies of the Diversity Plan Action Council Annual Report -- Eric wouldn't forgive me if I didn't mention DPAC.
Eric believed fervently in the possibility of social change and institutional transformation. He also knew it doesn't happen overnight. It takes commitment over the long haul, the ongoing hard work of organizing, and the often uncomfortable engagement in genuine coalition building. This work can be frustrating and thankless. But Eric knew it was also heroic. And he knew we could be heroes.
Christina Accomando
English, Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies and Multicultural Queer Studies
Humboldt State University
I’m so saddened by the loss of Eric. Eric and I met four years back—briefly. When I told a colleague of mine that my hope was to re-locate eventually to Arcata (near where my partner had lived for twelve years), she recommended I go talk to Eric.
Our very first conversation in his office sticks in my mind-- he immediately made me feel invited in and engaged me in issues that mattered--we talked about a book he was working on and the education program at HSU (I remember him telling me that what he loved about HSU was that it wasn’t trying to be a little bit of everything, but instead a program focused on social justice). He asked me about my research interests and we talked about his and of course his grassroots activism.
I left our brief meeting in his office four summers ago, so inspired and hoping that I would someday be able to work more closely with Eric—a man obviously so committed to really making change within and beyond the realm of schools.
While I knew Eric only as an acquaintance, I would keep in touch with him here and there while working on my doctorate at the University of Washington—I’ve e-mailed him seeking career advice, sent him conference ideas, and sought his mentorship regarding the tensions between academia/activism. Always he would e-mail back affirming my potential contributions and thoughts, and just plain being so open, friendly and warm. When I see the scope of his impact—I am just amazed by his capacity to give so lovingly, so fully.
Clearly Eric has a life-time of dedicated, admiring colleagues, co-conspiritors, and good, good friends, and loved ones. As a distant colleague of sorts, I feel such a deep loss and will miss him too—my feeling the need to write to on this blog, to read the outpouring of love from so many he touched says volumes about his spirit. And, I know I am a part of a large crowd –people who knew him a little or not at all, but so benefited from who he was in the world, what he did, the kinds of sustained stands he took, and the kinds of change he advocated, fought for, and created with others, on so many levels; grassroots, personally, and institutionally.
We’ll miss you Eric and thank you---my deepest sympathies to Eric’s family of blood and heart--
Jennifer Lindsay
University of Washington, College of Education
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
I only found out about Eric's death today, a year and a half after the fact. Comes from living in the antipodes I guess!
Eric taught me as a ten-year-old at Fayerweather in 1978-79. I had come from a very straight private school in a small city in Australia to a progressive environment where Eric was my teacher. I can't even begin to describe the impact Eric had on my life, if only to say that I credit him with much of my tolerance, open-ness to lifestyles outside the hetero/middle-class model. More than that, on finding out today, six days before xmas 2007 that he died a year and a half ago, I feel like I have lost a great supporter of me, and I didn't have the chance to tell him how much he meant to me. I must write to Crispin and put all this on paper. Eric would have wanted me to do that.
I have known Eric for 30 years! We have stayed in touch, seen each other, went to Mardi Gras in Sydney together, he has been there for such a long time, I am cast loose a bit by this news.
I love you Eric, you helped make me who I am and I will never, ever take your love and support for granted.
Sophie G (downunder)
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