Tribute to Doug Anderson

Dearest Doug,

I’m sorry that we didn’t have a proper goodbye. You left me a voice message a few days before you died. I called back several times but could never get through. Over the last few days, I’ve listened to that message over and over again — wishing we had connected. I didn’t realize you were edging the precipice. I’ve gone back to find several older messages from you — and listened to them — to hear your voice. However ephemeral, it’s what I have to be near you.

I do have powerful delightful memories. Most of them slaphappy, farcical, imaginative, and brilliant. You were a wonder of human nature! How you survived for so long under conditions defying modern medicine is a mystery. It is a testament to your tenacity and strong will. Once you set your mind to something, you were as stubborn as one gets…even escaping the nursing home for a day a few weeks before you left us.

You were irreverent to the highest order: shocking, inappropriate, preposterous, uber zany, and absurd beyond absurd. You were at the top of your class from the ‘I’m not sure if you’re serious or if you’re joking?’ School. You could turn a bad hair day into a “Your hair’s on fire!!” day.

Together we invented Performance Sports specifically Ball Toss — a combination of performance art, sports, and fuck everybody. We dressed in full-length yellow rubber raincoats each holding an empty mayonnaise jar and bounced a tennis ball (only one bounce was allowed rule) to catch the ball in your respective jar. Not a competition. No one won. No one lost. Legendary.

We met in the late 80s on the dance floor at the 24hrs/7 days a week/365 always open Cove in Atlanta, Georgia. That early morning at 6amish we were hovering above the dance floor in a blissful state of spiritual sassiness immediately recognizing one another’s audacity. We both adored the dance floor and its freedom of flight.

And most importantly, laughter. It was our true bond and silliness was the conduit. You were a worthy opponent as we jousted on the fence between provocative behavior and confrontational etiquette. You were an intellect and a sculptor of living life, composing in a realm that only poets exist. Fearless. You refused to accept the configurations of indoctrinated societal structures and mores. Doug Anderson was not and never was going to succumb to its constraints and narrow vision. I watched you wiggle your way from the limitations placed on us as U.S. Americans. As men. As queers. Unsure of what was ahead, you were not accepting assimilation.

During our last visit together in person in late November 1999 at my apartment in Brooklyn, we spoke to gay icon Quentin Crisp over the speaker phone the evening before he departed from NYC for Manchester, UK — and sadly died a few days later at 91. I think your longtime friend Phil Willkie (of The James White Review) had given you Quentin’s home number. It’s an illustration of many that marks your penchant for serendipity and your affinity for creating a moment.

Your commanding Minnesotan stature held your colossal heart full of sincere compassion for humanity — particularly underdogs and the marginalized. During your last years of immobility, pain, and difficulties — you were an admirable mix of cheerful cantankerousness. Our regular entertaining chats and your persistent voice of ridiculousness, I will forever miss and never forget.

Your admiring friend,

Ed