Later, You’ll Be Glad You Did It.



His mom, Esther, with the spread of food- tacos were a big hit, and lasagna.

Drove down to Cupertino today to attend Andrew Martinez’s Memorial. He actually died in May, but this was the press & “other friends” memorial, held on his birthday. There had been some issue about how the media had portrayed him, not to the extent or in the manner that those close to him would have wanted, so this was another chance to set the record straight. I got all of my news about Andrew filtered through my friend Sally who was at Cal at the same time, so I never endured the weird conservative spin. I guess that all started again when he died.

His girlfriend from a commune put together a video montage that was the best bit. In watching the videos, I remembered his great laugh- and he has a grace and intelligence, along with a wicked humor, that it’s fun to see pitted against Hollywood anchors. Oh right, and he was nude. And he’s hot. It’s a magic combo.

This sounds weird, but although he is “Andrew Martinez” in my mind, I had forgotten, strangely, in my memories and earlier writing about the fact that he was Hispanic. There was a great spread including tacos and lasagna, (his favorite foods) and he has a very large extended family in the Santa Clara area. His aunt read a long Native American poem about him. His best friend spoke about revamping the public penal system to deal with mental illnesses. The best part of Brian’s memorial speech was remembering the song playing at the Senior Prom when they arrived, at the end: Madonna’s Crazy For You.

I was really worked up about going. I didn’t want to, and I had actually decided last night not to go because I had some shopping to do, I was sick, and had tons of work. But after a night full of weird dreams, involving Andrew with a fro (!) there was little doubt I was going to go and get it out of my system. In a way, I realized that later, I’d be glad I went. It turned out to be true.

I got to finally talk to his mom, who lined me up with the other “girlfriends”- this made me distinctly uncomfortable. She had liked my earlier post, and appreciated the photo, so that was great.

One of his activist friends from Berkeley I knew on sight as one of the “jigglers”- women who weren’t nude but did little acts in cafes together, that I thought verged on theater- and not the MIME Troupe kinda theater. Thing about Andrew’s approach to activism, I thought, is that it was more about his expressing his freedom than impinging on ours. Though, I had no problem with him walking around nude, as I went to a college with nudist folks who never got suspended (shame on you, UC Regents). Sure, there was the random thought- hope the nude guy isn’t in the midnight film tonight – but more because that guy was boring + nude, not funny + nude like Andrew.

I’m glad I went- it helped get over random thoughts and memories that were basically haunting me. Met up with some old friends there too, and one of them who was very close to Andrew was having a tough time even being there.

In the beginning of the memorial when we were all seated, a cat started walking around the room. I just had this really weird idea that it was him.