John David Lake. RIP.

This entry was going to be a rant about what a dreadful shower of cunts Boots Alliance are (again), but then I came across something on the net that put things into perspective.

A chap in Kansas City who went by the name of John David Lake passed away on Wednesday evening. He was 50 years old. He is survived by his partner Tony and his dog Spud.

I never met him in real life. I happened across his online journal one day via a comment he left on someone else's, and was hooked. As a writer he was funny, and from the stories he told, he came across as a person who was funny in real life too. His blog was studded with gems about:

- Weirdoes he had to deal with at work
- Having crushes on his co-workers
- Feigning heterosexuality during NASCAR season
- Bluetooth device users
- Ogling hot men
- Video games
- Bad spelling and grammar (we very much shared the same opinion on this)
- Having to suffer a zit on his nose
- His dog Spud, and the conversations he had with him.

and my personal favourite,

An ode to toast

So with that, I direct you to go over to the blog entitled A Spasmodic Attachment and read. You will like it. Hopefully it will be left up there and not deleted. It would make for a nice epitaph for him, I think.

It made me think about other related things in general. No one in Mallow has any idea about my blog that I'm aware of thus far, and in common with a lot of gay men who grew up in provincial areas, most of the life that I've built for myself since I left is separate and distinct from my life in my home town. If, God forbid, I were to die, most of the people who would turn up for the funeral would be unknown to my parents, especially all the people I've come to know in Brighton. Is building a life for yourself so separate from your parents and where you grew up a good thing? I imagine it's par for the course for a lot of people.

When I was at Joop's funeral, I remember thinking about whether or not it would be a good idea to have the address of my blog given out to people at my funeral as a way of remembering me. It would probably cause a little bit of discomfort to some of my family, but in the long-term, I think it's a good way of remembering someone for ever. Like a mark that someone made while they were here, whatever it amounts to.

I've often planned a road trip across America, going from place to place, living in different cities, meeting different people. I thought to myself more than once that I would like to meet John, Tony, and their dog Spud in real life, to put a personality on their internet story. Now that story has taken a sad twist, and lost one of its leading players.

Oh, the power of the internet.

Farewell John. You were funny, you were a good writer, and you were hot. You died too young. Rest In Peace.