It’s been nearly a year since this happened; i didn’t publish this then, because i didn’t want to intrude into the sorrow of people who could claim true kinship and friendship to this marvelous man. I knew him only in passing. It doesn’t feel presumptuous anymore to speak of his meaning, for he touched my life.
April 6th, 2009 –
I just woke up with the radio news, telling me of the memorial last night, for Joe Bird.
Joe?! Gone?
Funny, lovely, crazy Joe, with his pretty voice and his flighty ways. Dead at 41, died last week of a heart attack.
I hadn’t heard a thing. I’ve been all wrapped up in my book launches, and other than that in family and neighbourhood life. In fact, haven’t seen or heard much of Joe at all, for years, pretty much since i started Big Sky Theatre and left the scene at the open stage he’d been hosting on Whyte Ave, down in the arty heart of Edmonton. I’d hear of his work occasionally, of course, it’s not that big an arts community. But obviously, i’d no idea of his life – ever, really; we were never close, even when he used to kiss me. Funny thing, people.
Joe became part of my life in ‘97, though of course i’d seen his work as a comedian around town – who hadn’t. If you were young and artsy in the late 80s in edmonton, you knew about ‘Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie.’ But it was at an open stage on Whyte that i met him one night, in ‘96, when i was visiting in town from B.C. i brought my guitar and sang. and he complimented me, in a sweet and gentle way, and went on about his evening, chatting with the other players there, playing his own turn, creating a hum of smiles.
I felt refreshed.
You see, i was in the midst of some very emotionally and spiritually grueling work out in BC. I was beginning to think it was time to get out. When i knew for sure i was headed back to Alberta, i picked up an arts paper, and found in it the information that Joe was host of another open stage, at a place called Corks on Whyte. I remember reading that and thinking, ‘By the full moon of next month, i could be there, i could be singing on that stage.’
The thought became reality. and the reality was just what i imagined – light, fresh, freeing. I was back in the land of the big sky, out of the claustrophobic clutch of the mountains. I’d survived the weight of my work in BC – which work i do honour, which time was a treasure in its way, but which was a strange, hard time. By contrast, here was a community of people just playing, just making music. And Joe was in his glory, hosting. And he began to flirt with me.
What a flirt he was. A colleague of his once said of that scene, with a wry grin because his wife had been in it too, it was ‘joe bird’s petting zoo.’ Because he flirted with us all. Hugged us, kissed us, complimented us. It was all a game. And while part of me thought i ought to be offended, i enjoyed being one of the bevy of gals with whom he flirted. I liked feeling pretty. I needed that. If that makes me shallow, well, i’m shallow. But Joe’s funny light helped me relax – as much as i ever did. By his standards, i was “probably pretty high maintenance” as he told me one day, by way of letting me know why, for his part, it had never been more than a flirtation. By that time i could smile. He was right, by his lights.
But still, we were never close. I told him another time that i didn’t give a damn about “who he was” because he was blathering some nonsense (though it’s not) about fame; and i was insulted, at the time, that he would imply i only liked him for his popularity. But i was also sad for him, that he felt that way, couldn’t think i’d like him as a person, assumed it was only glamour; on the other hand, it was also accurate in that, as i said, we weren’t close. I didn’t really know him. He didn’t want to be known to me. And i didn’t actually want to be known to him. Apart from the love of music, and desire to be part of beauty, we were too different.
I’m glad, that i knew him when i did. He helped me so much, to come back from the darkness i’d been through. Though he had his own brand of darkness, though he wore shallowness like a shield, there was something truly kind and sweet about him, and i was blessed to meet him just when i needed that kind of kindness. And in fact, i suppose i needed distance and lightness, too. It was best just that way, sweet, light.
He gave me the gift of treating me pretty. And he helped me hook back up with my brothers, because i brought them to see the ridiculous, brilliant show he was doing that summer, Lester B. Pearson’s World of Hypnosis. I remember telling him once, ‘Thank you for that, Joe.’
And being, in my heart, a bit dubious of myself, a bit wondering was I sincere? It was odd to me, the dawning realisation, just as i said it, that that was the gift i’d gotten from him, when i was still, in some way, expecting it to have been the gift of a lover. Though by that time, i had mostly come to understand how he was, just playing, just needing to be pretty himself, needing attention and needing to create a sense of being loved by many, without having to worry about messing up in the follow-through.
Ah, Joe. I wrote a song for him. Well, it was for theatre guys as a ‘type’, but he was the first person i sang it for, the very day i finished it. Which is maybe not too much of a gift in return, but i do hope he really liked it.
‘That’s pretty, baby,’ he said at the time, after jumping in and singing along on the harmonies, just as easy as if he’d known that song forever, his voice soaring sweet and true.
He was part of the beauty.
Good bye Joe.