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June
- 2001- Harry Bush
hi guys, this morning in answering an email, i realized maybe
i should post it to all of you. several of you have written me
wanting to know more about Harry Bush, and i've said a little
but not much. But i know a lot about Harry, maybe as much as anyone
because we wrote each other
tons of correspondence. Harry wrote others long letters, but i
think I was the last link in his chain of confidants. and as such
my documentation' might be the most complete. from the attachment
you can see he was as good as it gets artwise. i can't praise
it enough. this morning for some reason, i was in the mood to
say a little about the man, mainly as a reply to a nice email from
a canadian guy. hope my canadian friend won't mind me sharing
his my reply to his mail with all of you.-----------------------
june, 2001
the drawing attached is just to tease, and maybe to verify i'm
not just making up a story here. but even so, i'm a little uncomfortable
sending it out, and it's hard to explain why. for sure i'm a little
overly protective. i know how deeply Harry really resented a lot
of things. 1) that nobody who was publishing his art really
respected it. i'm not sure that was true, but it's how he perceived
it, because the printed image was often very different from the
original he gave the publishers. part of it of course was the
technology of the times, and maybe the magazines could have tried
harder, but harry wanted us to see his art as he intended, and
resented being labeled 'temperamental' and 'hard to deal with'
even 'bitchy old queen' by those he had to work with. 2) he
loathed' the california gay scene and his role as irrelevant outsider
on a personal level. those in the business loved
his art but disliked or 'tolerated' his person, he felt. he was
a little older by then, arguably overly sensitive, and a bit old-fashioned
in his thinking, and always affected by the straight morality
of the time, having retired from a military career. then too he
had become maybe not so physically attractive, although in his
pics during his service years (stationed in England) he surprised
me in being so very cute, and i especially liked a gap-toothed
smiling photo he shared, although, he said, as a youth his teeth
had made him very self-concious. anyway, the younger california
crowd ignored him, and their "jaded" "indulgent" lifestyles left him feeling disdain. he said everybody was always
trying to get something for nothing. nothing new in that, except
after years it broke his spirit. the gay world as he knew it,
to put it bluntly, disgusted him. but you can miss that looking
at the drawings to begin with, but then when it's pointed out
you get a hint of the darkness behind the humor. for himself, the
humor wore thin, and the darkness took over. knowing how i loved
and respected his art he told me he'd burn it all rather than
be ripped off one final time. i don't think he was referring to
me when he wrote that in a letter, but it sort of stung anyway.
he had already expressed this bent to others as well, and one
of the biggest insults was when one of the few individuals he
trusted was loaned his sketchbook and it came back altered just
enough that Harry was sure everything had been photographed or
copied without his consent. so the hole just got deeper darker
and wider. no family, no friends. just one remaining sister who
he looked after, and who was, he said, the only person left "to
bury me". then she died unexpectedly. it was our final marker.
not long afterwards he stopped writing to me. he was plagued with
emphesyma and life was just one insurmountable effort. i wondered
how long he would last, and only now know he went on for 5 more
years. all of it probably downhill, til his death in '94. so it's
a depressing scenario, and so opposed to those robust playful
drawings left behind for us to enjoy. but how could we enjoy them
except thru the publishers he grew to hate. that he could not
feel part of the family, forgive and forget, was his downfall.
but there's no way to change this personal bent in someone. he
liked 'mentoring' me, and i said all the nice things i knew to
say, and when he said he picked up the pencil for the first time
in years to illustrate some points to help my development, i felt
really good, like we would make each other's life more fun. but
it bubbled up and then boiled down. and in the end i was just
another thing he closed off. and so in a way i've closed him off
too. it's just so depressing to realize life can do that to anyone
of us. or that we can and will do it to ourselves. if someone
doesn't want your friendship, what can you do? i'd rather just
look at the drawings and forget about the rest, and that's why i'm not sure
i even want his story told. maybe it's better not knowing it,
just look at a drawing that "life" created, not having
to realize that "life" also takes away.
so maybe you can understand why it makes me uncom-fortable to
share the stuff he did just for me. would Harry see me as just
one more person posthumously ripping him off? maybe. but in our
own way each of us are/were extremely 'open'. my advantage is
an enormous one the world didn't offer him- Harry didn't have
the internet, but i do.
best wishes to all of you,
tom
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