I knew Tom Merkel from the bisexu-l mailing list, where we both used to be pretty active. A couple years ago he had had to cut back on his postings after a little accident where somehow he typed the wrong thing and his mailer decided to take the sexually-explicit e-mail letter he was sending to a friend, and send copies of it to everyone who worked at his AT&T office, something like that. So he was told to cut back on his non-work-related e-mail time for a while. Then about a year and a half ago he signed off the list altogether after a contract job ended and he didn't like the way the list was changing from supportive to flames-R-us.
I liked his kindness, his sense of humor, his empathy, his wanting to see a big picture, his being very approachable, his calmness and rationality in the middle of various storms, etc. etc. We had in common being parents and having typical relationship problems, and had occasional correspondence -- usually related to these things -- after he signed off bisexu-l. No matter how busy he was he was always happy to get a letter and tell you what was up.
Here is one letter from him that I still had sitting around ... the last paragraph certainly gets to me now:
Oh my ... you said your last job was high-stress (though you liked it) and now this one is even MORE demanding? Well just remember to take good care of yourself!
Not to worry. The demands of building systems I can take, it is
the corporate bullshit which pisses me off and makes me crazy. The
new job is going to require me to use a few more neurons than the
last one, but I won't be walking out the door shaking with anger.
Less BS at Bellcore, for sure.
I just had a stress test, BTW. Run me on the treadmill till it
hurts, then dump in the thalium tracer and relax under the camera.
I look like I lost a fight with an octopus -- they shaved patches of
my chest, then the adhesive from the EKG leads pick up lint and
leave round sucker marks. I look like Nemo's crew in the Disney
movie ;) Good news though, the cardiologist didn't make anywhere
near as many worried noises as last time. I may live a while
:)
Now me on the other hand, I let too many of his and everyone else's letters pile up "to get back to later when I have more time", so we didn't correspond as much as we might have. Lately I had been pleased to see him appearing regularly on soc.motss (he posted a few messages here as recently as Tuesday) and really regret that I never mailed him any kind of "hey, good to see you here too!" acknowledgement about that.
I downloaded his gif file from ursa-major.spdcc.com at one point and told him that the feeling I got from it was one of "inner strength", that he faced the camera looking completely relaxed and friendly, none of the awkwardness or armor with the camera that so many people get. That he looked happy being himself.
Well, I guess I should end this and just give you some Tom Merkel in his own words, from two old postings I still had sitting around in one of my mail files:
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 10:13:00 EST
It isn't until your eyes adjust to the dark that you notice the
person quietly sitting in the most remote corner of the bar. He is
middle aged and balding, wearing an expensive suit and an outrageous
tie. You notice a small diamond in his left ear. There is a laptop
computer in front of him, and as you come around the side of the
table you notice that the display seems to be mostly financial
information -- though it doesn't look quite like anything you've seen
before. Just before you get a good look he slams the computer shut,
and looking up smiles and says "I can't share that with you."
As he shuts off the laptop the room flickers. People seem to fade
and pop in and out of existence. "Well, you did wander into my area
of influence..." he warns you. There is a flicker, the slightest
blink of your eye, and you see the same person 20 years younger,
with waist length hair and a beer in his hand. Another flicker, and
you see him in leather, a little older, with a bottle of bourbon on
the table. Another flicker, and you see a nerdy teenager, playing
with a gun. There's a bang, and for a moment you see nothing, and
then the guy you first saw reappears, wearing jeans and an oxford
button down shirt. He has a glass of club soda in his hand.
"First, I have to apologize to Mike for playing these games.
Sometimes I just find myself having to be dramatic or silly just to
make a point." "It is sometimes very difficult for me to communicate
with any of you" he continues "though we all have a lot in common. I
read that mailing list, and I catch glimpses of myself in other
times and places. However, those of you who are suffering are often
the most difficult to approach, and often you are the very people
who most remind me of where I've been."
"Oh yeah, monogamy is back again as the topic that will not die."
You are startled by a loud bang and a puff of smoke, and you notice
that every table in the room has been replaced by a soapbox. "Ha, my
virtual reality, get used to it" he laughs, "notice that I have the
biggest one..."
"No matter how you categorize and dissect human relationships, the
ones that you have are always going to be messy and crazy and go
outside of the bounds you have set for yourself. If you believe in
monogamy you will someday find yourself in love with two people at
the same time, if you are a polygamist someday you will find
yourself exchanging rings with someone while cooing 'forever and
ever I will be true'. And you will mean it all. I've had to learn to
accept this paradox in my life."
"In my experience our minds always play tricks with us. Whenever we
get what we want we find it isn't what we need. Nothing is static in
human affairs, and love and sex is the most chaotic and wonderful of
all. Take it from me, my wife agrees, my boyfriends agree, my
girlfriends agree, and my youngest daughter who thinks TNKOTB are
sigh fabulous agrees....."
You notice an instrument on the wall, a bogometer. The needle is
hovering dangerously in the red.... There is a soft pop, and the
tables return. Your personal sillimeter is off the scale. There is a
snap as the bogometer needle wraps around the limit post.
"Now that I have that out of the way, for my thoughtful friends
wondering how to put Herr Hauer under my xmas tree, well you could
start by wrapping him in black leather and red ribbon. Let me tell
you, honey, Diana wouldn't mind either."
Suddenly all of the instruments register zero.
"Art and censorship? I must have missed a few important postings.
Let me suggest a look at art in the Third Reich. State sponsored and
approved art, family virtues, stereotyped images of heroic men and
fertile women, what is so frightening to me is how much our culture
uses these themes as well. And how much I buy into it."
We now return to our regular scheduled programming.
From: merkel%DITTO.ATT.COM@brownvm.brown.edu
Date: Thu, 23 May 91 14:25:00 EDT
Tjalda asks, why don't we post about bisexuality, offer each other
support, be warm and supportive. Well, I've tried at times, but
lately I haven't felt very warm or supportive. I do try to post from
the heart sometimes, and often get nastygrams for my effort. sigh
I'll try once again, hoping for a kinder, gentler bi-l.
An edited repost from 4/30/91:
............................. I've always felt a bit out of place on
this list. I'm 35, and I've done quite a few things that people here
seem to have trouble identifying with. Marriage, children, illness,
polygamous at times, I'm too reputable for the very out and far too
disreputable for the very closeted. Foooey!
My sexual history? The first encounter I remember was with a
neighborhood girl, we both must have been 4 years old. I remember
because her father found us with our clothes disheveled and made a
big fuss about it.
I remember always being sexually active. Mostly with other boys,
sometimes with girls ( boys/girls intended to give an indication of
age, not a slur ). When I was 13 I had a very sexual relationship
with a boy, and my first romance with a girl. That period ended with
tremendous upheavel in my personal life. My mother left her second
husband, what was left of my biological family left Florida and
resettled in northern New Jersey.
The greatest regret I have of that time is that I couldn't conceive
of a romantic relationship with a member of the same sex ( MOTSS ).
In my mind women were for romance, and men were for secret sex.
Even when I had an obvious crush on a guy I didn't know how to turn
it into anything more than furtive groping. I couldn't be friends
with a man, with any sort of intimacy, because I wanted far more
than the straight culture would permit me. There were no gay or bi
role models for me at this time ( ~1970 ). A few years later came
disco and bars and a great wave of gay and bi visibility, but by
that point I was deep in a relationship with a woman and had
constructed a tremendous defense against my homosexuality. Except
when I got drunk -- then I felt much more comfortable and lost quite
a few of my inhibitions -- and eventually my friends.
About 4 years ago I crashed and burned. I had a heart attack, which
brought me smack up against my mortality, fell into a deep
depression, and drank myself into another world. Recovering from
this has caused me to question everything I've ever known or
suspected. I had to accept my sexual desires, reconcile myself with
a sense of failure for being a stereotypical angry college student
in 1975 and a middle class husband approaching middle age in 1990,
and come to grips with my inner rejection of the values of my peers.
For the longest time I hated myself, and I wanted that to stop.
What I've been searching for, on this list and elsewhere, is more
than acceptance of my sexuality. I now see my struggles with my
bisexuality, my sexual and emotional needs for people, not genders,
as a battle with my childhood notions of masculinity and gender. I
see biphobia and homophobia, and enforced monosexuality, as
constructs which restrict my personal and spiritual growth. I don't
see our culture freeing itself of most of the very destructive
behaviors -- war and intitutionalized violence, racism, sexism, the
belief that a single ideology explains all of the human condition --
unless we redefine our gender roles.
From: merkel%DITTO.ATT.COM@brownvm.brown.edu
Goodbye Tom, I'll miss you a lot.
