Brush with greatness

I just had one of those "where are they now" moments when I started playing a new Petshop Boys CD and wondered what happened to a guy I knew in university. I casually put his name into Google and, damn, Bill Boll is a filmmaker along with Hickenlooper. I'm still in shock.

This was a guy who would paste the campus with goofy flyers on every billboard for his avant garde music shows with ribald titles. A number of friends I knew would go and drag me along, one evening Bill even asked me to be a go-go dancer since the pre-arranged person hadn't showed. I said no, but the mutual friends conspired, got me liquored up and I wound up in thigh-high purple boots and an orange and white spotted miniskirt hopping around to Bill's music.

One New Year's Eve, Bill threw a party and a few of us fortified our evening with Vitamin A to usher in the new. Hickenlooper stopped by as I recall but didn't stay. I didn't really know George but his father was the esteemed Shakespearean guest professor at my high school as well as a playwright of some acclaim. The loo was equipped with a tape recorder that night where guests were asked to record some profound thought in words while using the facilities. Listening to the tape after everyone had left was pretty hilarious too :) Bill's tie collection was also burned into my memory since they were outrageous and bright under the influence. There was freezing rain/sleet that night and around 3am we went out onto Lindell Boulevard and started skating around without coats or gloves as though we'd live forever. It is interesting what lingers in the memory nearly 20 years later.

A few years ago I ran into the ex-girlfriend of one of the guys in the crowd that I had a severe crush on and enquired about Bill among others. She told me he had gone out to California and was studying to be an Environmental Lawyer. Odd, I thought, but everyone seems to grow up, sell out and make a living eventually. Now that I know he's doing something creative and didn't bow to the maturity manifesto I'm pleased and a bit jealous. Bill, I salute you for sucking the marrow out of life just like I had always knew you would.