Where to even start? This weekend saw the passing of a beloved friend and irreplaceable Toronto personality Will Munro, after a 2 year fight with brain cancer. All my heart goes out to his brother Dave and their family, Will's partner Peter and all his friends. It's so hard not to think angrily of all the useless people I know that give nothing back to their world, and hold it up against this - the cruelty of someone so visionary and so giving being taken in their prime. A born fighter, even through his diagnosis and chemotherapy, Will hardly let it slow down his art or his work.
He is mourned heavily in Toronto punk, art and queer circles, and more specifically - the spaces in between the three. This uncharted autonomous zone is where Will set up shop and he filled in those gaps with the monumental realities that he wished to see there - people carving out space in their city to define by themselves. Amongst his huge body of artistic work and all his other ventures, Will started up a monthly party called Vazaleen, spanning most of the last decade. He threw some debaucherous nights that people are still getting over (involving international music and performance art notables like Limp Wrist, Wayne County, the Toilet Boys, Genesis P Orridge (Throbbing Gristle), Cherie Currie and so many more). As was Will's plan, everybody felt a part of it, got lost in it and let it all hang out a little more than they planned to.
We worked together at a College Street bar where I served and Will cooked. We once put a juggalo CD we hated in a sandwich press to see what would happen (in tinfoil, of course. And for the record, they blow out). I worked the door for him at Vazaleen from the earlier days at the old El Mocambo - totally unhinged punk nights that would culminate in counting money out on the dingy office desks of certain shady Toronto night life personalities at 3am, trying to keep the math straight over the noise and confusion while lines were being done off the same desks - money which had to get to bands, the next party, charities, and youth outreach. Will somehow kept it all straight and gave everything and more back to his world, and despite being surrounded by it, he never got sucked into drugs, the drama or the shit. Too busy spinning records and keeping asses shaking, he was interested in the life-affirming, community-building side of those sweaty, loud late nights.
I was lucky enough to spend some time with him in his last stretch, but even though we all knew it was coming for a few weeks, it still leaves an impossibly permanent hole in our world. There are a million eulogies going around this week. I can't say it any better than the rest. But all the retroactive accolades which are usually so exaggerated when someone dies, in Will's case really couldn't be more true. Nighthawk, multitasker, artist, curator, activist, DJ, punk, auteaur, one in a million. This city is truly not the same without him. We'll all miss you, Will. To Dave, the best big brother anyone could ever ask for and who has kept vigil through all this at Will's side, I love you. You've been a big brother to me and so many of us all this time.
I imagine Will would cringe at all this grief and melodrama on his account (he'd want us all to shut up and dance). But it's precisely here, in the far-reaching and scene-spanning waves of grief going around in the wake of his death, that we truly see the extent of the community of Will's vision and the success of his mission to make it real. This friday at 11::40AM, we all truly lost one of ours.
1975 - 2010
0 comments:
Post a Comment