Flying to New York because
of the death of a dear friend is the worst reason to come here. And here I am.
Because dear John Falkenberg has died.
Having spent the last 24 hours with his husband, Kenneth, and a wonderful group of John’s closest friends and
John’s parents and siblings, I am struck by the absolute privilege it has been to have
had John in my life, and to have been a part of his.
John F was the man who introduced
me to “FPOS”. His personal acronym for “fucking piece of shit” – a phrase that
never loses the satisfaction of its utterance, however many times it is
repeated and in whatever context. Traffic. Politics. Airlines. Customer
service. Weather. Food. People. Software. It can all be a fucking piece of
shit. I find it cathartic.
John F is the only person I
have known who actually did throw pieces of mis-functioning hardware at walls.
Whether phones or printers, those fucking pieces of shit did get thrown. It’s
what they deserved.
John F was my favourite
person to talk politics with. Whether UK or US politics, the man knew his
stuff; he could read political runes well, and understood economic impact on
domestic and international politics in a way I would just listen and learn
from. And he hated fucking idiot, fucking hypocrite, fucking racist, fucking
homophobic, fucking gun-toting, fucking idiot politicians with a delicious
zeal. Cross-Atlantic phone-calls in the midst of election campaigns were
particularly important. We’d share our elation, disgust or utter outrage as
results came through. John’s pre-election night State-by-State analysis of the
second Obama election (yes, there was a spreadsheet of scenarios and tallies)
helped my engagement with, and understanding of, what turned out to be one of
the elation nights. And his level of disbelief at the disgrace of the UK
coalition being formed and somehow surviving was great fun. One of the last
politics conversations I had with him was about the coalition tax and benefit
changes that kicked in in April. He could not understand why there was no
rioting on UK streets. “No, seriously, why isn’t it happening?”
I loved John’s music
collection. I proudly have and play a number of original US sleeve vinyl albums
of his. He introduced me to the Grateful Dead. He loved Hair! as much as I do. And he was a Frank Zappa fan. What’s not to
like about all that? Seeing Hair! in
the open air theatre in Central Park was a shared highlight. As was he and me
seeing Dweezil Zappa’s Zappa Plays Zappa
show on Long Island. And he queued for 90 minutes with me outside New York’s
Beacon Theatre in 2006 to get front row seats for a PJ Harvey solo set – an
example of his love of me perhaps more than his love of PJ.
John laughed at my jokes,
which can never be a bad thing in my book. I have an email trail with him as
the new pope was being elected and there was some earnest discussion of the
possible name he might take. My suggestion of “Popus Cuntiflex” tickled John
greatly.
The days, months and years
ahead will be less rich without John F. In particular, the debut UK performance
of 200 Motels in October which he was
so looking forward to coming to will now be a sad memorial. But somehow, in the
midst of the grief, I was reminded of Lawrence M Krauss’ quote that “Every atom
in your body came from a star that exploded….was created in the nuclear
furnaces of stars”. I have a deep sense of sadness that another nuclear furnace
of a star has been lost.
And yes, John F’s death is a
fucking piece of shit.
