2002-11-18 : What ever happened to Paul Hill?
I wonder what ever happened to Paul Hill. I thought of him suddenly on the bus last week, and I haven't thought of him for many, many years. I met him in the basement of channing murray at some mediocre hardcore show. Must have been 1986 or 1987 because I was still in high school. He was tall and sturdy looking. Looked like he could kick anybody's ass that dared to mess with me. He had nice dark hair and eyes and a good jawline and when I asked him in that dark basement (shouting, more likely, over the rapid-fire drumming of the band) what his name was I was convinced that he said "bald hill" and I thought to myself, "my god...did I hear that right? what an unusual first name" but later I recognized that he said his name was "paul hill". We striked up a friendship/mutual crush (I THINK he had a crush on me too...but it was never exactly broached)...I would go over to his dorm room (he lived in Bromley Hall) and back then I had a slight elevator phobia and he lived on the 12th floor, I think, so I would walk up the stairwell to his room. I remember looking at this Velvet Underground book that he had. He also had a big fascination with The Butthole Surfers and I remember that he was an exceptionally good (if not in a morbid phase) artist. He gave me a charcoal drawing he had done. I wonder if I still have it. It was of his gravestone in the future (the date of death is intentionally blurred) and a hand (presumably his) is shoving itself up through the earth in front of the tombstone. Creepy and really well done. I remember once we were sitting in his dorm room and we were holding hands and we were literally just about to kiss..our faces moving closer together, our hands poised to touch necks, cheeks, the back of heads, but then right at the crucial lip-locking moment (a split second before we actually kissed) a bunch of his FUCKING MORONIC friends came bashing through the door, drunk and loud and we pulled away quickly. That was the closest I ever came to him. He went back home to Pickniville (by Carbondale) that summer and I didn't see him but he wrote really nice, colorful letters to me very frequently. I lost contact w/him but managed to find him again the next year and him and some friends came to visit me in Carbondale. I remember going to J and G's house w/them and I seem to recall a year later I ran into him at a Summer concert series on campus and we had both changed alot but I sensed there was still an attraction between us. I wish I could find him now and see what his life has shaped up to be. Unfortunately, there are most likely alot of Paul Hill's in this world!!
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The reggae I saw (Apple Gabriel..guess he used to be in a fairly famous roots reggage band called Israel Vibration in the 70s and 80s) was quite good. I danced alot and Apple Gabriel himself danced alot even though he's been stricken with polio (it looks like he might have one prosthetic leg or it is wasted away to nothing, but I could be wrong)..I'd gauge him to be in his early 60s but perhaps he isn't htat old. Anyways, he was a sweet old man with a cane, who had a righteous voice and he said nice things to say about the world that we live in.
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I just got back from lunch. Ate another greek salad. I wonder if I will one day develop cancer from eating so many kalamata olives? I think they contain sulfides or something. Oh well, they taste DELICIOUS with feta and oil and vinegar dressing!!
