Gene Lee - in memoriam
I just found out on 37signals’ company blog that the amazing Gene Lee has died.
I first encountered Gene from afar - I had snuck into the VIP section of a Diplo concert at the Pitchfork Music Festival when suddenly this man wearing only a tight speedo bathing suit jumped onstage and started dancing with a frenzied passion that I had never seen before. The crowd went wild.
Then a few months later I wandered into Santullos in Wicker Park feeling a bit sad and listless when I saw a familiar Asian man wearing a red jacket that looked straight out of The Little Prince. I stopped dead in my tracks and blurted out, “hey you’re the dancing guy from the Diplo concert!” To my surprise, this rather rude declaration was met with a smile (which is unusual in most hipster encounters). Gene welcomed me to his table immediately and we proceeded to talk for more than two hours about everything from art and music to god, travel, transcendentalism and his view that dancing can be a religion that brings you to higher states of consciousness.
He explained that he danced in the six-corner intersection in Wicker Park because the location was a fantastic convergence of energy, but he also joked that he was trying to pull down the property values in a neighborhood that was gentrifying too quickly. I left our meeting feeling that I had met a remarkable person - a prophet of dance and light, a generous soul who was urging us all to break free of our normal perspectives on life and do something new (even if it was just to watch or join him for a moment in his frenetic movement).
We kept in touch after he moved from Chicago and recently we started chatting about making a video for Fresh Cut Media. Here are the last things he wrote to me about his time in California:
“playing guitar, techno rock in the art galleries = and warehouses of oakland and san francisco. micro raves is what i call them. i was always more of a musician, a leader of the dance than just a dancer darling.
perhaps i ‘ll send some video your way.
i also am in jonathon caouette’s upcoming second film.
magical times!
they are everywhere ‘magical times’. you just have to read the right books.
cheers dear.
eugene”
Cheers to you Gene - your spirit dances on.
Gene Lee may or may not actually be dead. Many folks think it’s a publicity stunt. FYI.