John Musgrave.
John Musgrave passed away Monday, February 6, 2006 after one of the most inspiring battles with cancer that I have ever known. But I would have expected nothing less, and I’ll tell you why…
I first met John Musgrave in one of the most unlikely places. You see I had just moved in to what I have now come to realize was one of the most uniquely wonderful places I will probably ever live. It was in an old warehouse in Toronto’s West end that I met John shooting hoops by himself. He was out behind the building practicing his moves, and like a moth to a flame, I was draw in to the game. He gave me the slightest of glances as he drove to the hoop and swished a ball home! It was at that point that I was instantly introduced to one of the single most competitive people I have ever met.
John’s competitive nature set him apart from anyone I have ever known for the simple fact that he was also one of the most giving, self sacrificing, easy-going people you could ever meet. But get him out on that basketball court, and it was game over, if you didn’t get at least one elbow in the jaw, or have at least one head-on collision with him during a game, you were either too slow to keep up with him, or you were a spectator (which didn’t always preclude you from getting run over by him anyway).
To put this into perspective for those of you that may not have known John (although it would amaze me to think that there is anyone in the No Fly Zone that didn’t know him) he was slimly built, average height, grey haired and fifty something. But he was in tiptop shape. He was nearly double my age, and easily double my fitness level! But to meet him, he was an unassuming, mild mannered man that had a smile for everyone, and was always the first to offer you a hand in any way that he could.
Outwardly, he was everyone’s friend and simply put one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Inwardly he was a passionate, competitive, creative, artistic man that was stuck in a workingman’s life. When I met John, he was a truck driver by profession and one of the most unlikely people you would ever imagine behind the wheel of a truck. Having a background in that industry, I know that (like any profession) truck drivers are made up from all different types of people, from all walks of life. But stereotypes are a hard thing to shake, especially in the case of the trucking industry. So by day, you would find John driving all across this great land of ours making his deliveries, and by night, you could find him either shooting hoops, or hanging with the groups of us that would share a beer or a joint, and swap stories.
One of my fondest memories of John was the way he would tell a story. He had a gift for it, and loved to do it. He was a very good storyteller. Often he told his animated tales with the help of his guitar and a song or two that he had created. In our building, which I think was a very unique thing for Toronto , there were large groups of us that would get together all of the time and just hang out. We were a big happy family of misfits, yuppies, artists, realtors, actors, sales people, musicians, and truck drivers. And John was the head of the family.
We always used to say that he was the Godfather of the building. He and Tracy had been there longer than anyone, and over the years had seen it go from a decrepit old squat for starving artists, to work/live studio space for those same artists, to the hottest place for after hours booze, to a more gentrified rental hot spot, to its final destiny being converted into condominiums.
I had moved out of the building shortly after they announced it was going to become condo space to avoid the mad rush to find living spaces for the 150 or so residents of the building that would all want to stay in the area. It was at this point that I briefly lost track of John. John and Tracy were not so easily deterred and hung on until a much later date, and I had not kept in close enough contact to know where they had gone. It wasn’t until my work with Gadzooks! that I reconnected with John. A large part of our mandate here is to promote talented artists of all disciplines from the No Fly Zone, so I set about to track him down. It was then that I found out that John had been diagnosed with cancer, had stopped working, and was taking art classes to pass the time.
When we re-connected, it was like we had spoken only the day before, and he was his usual self. He had said that he was very happy to hear from me and in typical John fashion even invited me to a party that he and Tracy were holding the next weekend. I explained to him that we were looking to feature him as one of our people in the neighbourhood and that we wanted to hook up with him to do an interview. From that interview, we learned of his project to do a self-portrait a day until he received the call from the hospital to receive the liver transplant that he so desperately needed. Thus was born the online story of John’s Vigil.
Every week Gadzooks! would feature John’s work, and would keep everyone updated with his news, his stories, his poems, and of course with his previous week’s self portraits. John even went so far as to say that he looked forward to seeing what we would post under his feature every week. So it is with a great deal of emotion that we tell you that this will be John’s last update of new work, having completed his last Vigil self portrait on Sunday. John passed away Monday with his loving family gathered by his side. Though his story is far from over, we feel that the world has lost a truly wonderful person, and we would like to pass on our condolences to his family. We have all become richer people having shared in John’s final legacy, and are deeply saddened by his passing.
