My Friend Jesse

It was Tuesday. I woke up, walked my dog, had coffee, went to work, then the gym, came home, walked my dog, ate dinner. Just another day. As many of them go, as many of them take you to the place where you are given a pat on the head for doing the right thing, for paying your bills, for being who your parents wanted you to be. You are part of the system, everything is in order, a life unprovoked. It's ok, everything is fine.

It was 10 pm, I sat in my bed, mindlessly scrolling on my phone when I got the call from my best friend, Beau. Something so normal and unfazed, but then:

"I have really bad news," he said, "Jesse's dead."

And then, all the air left the room.

Beau and I had both met Jesse on our respective journeys and we somehow had all found our way to each other in the sweet years just after high school and just before we became adults. Earlier in February, we had been reminiscing about Jesse, a person of whom we both held a special place for in our hearts and the timelines of our lives. He was unique and lived what I believe is something that many people strive for and that's a life worth remembering. He existed in his art and possessed many talents, one of which being storytelling with an ability to tell tales of his life that were so vivid, you would feel almost as if you lived it yourself. A true artist, he lived in obscurity, riding the lines between bright and enlightened, to withdrawn and troubled. Since our conversation about him just a month ago, I had been feeling something orbiting me. Something pushing me, a presence you could say, though I couldn't comprehend what.

Our conversation of Jesse a month ago bled into the following day where I was recollecting moments and facts of his life. Standing in an elevator, thinking of him, I tried to remember how old he was, which brought me to a memory of us at a teppanyaki restaurant where he ordered sake and shared it with me because I wasn't 21 just yet. He was a few years older than I, as I remembered, but something about this fact disoriented me. Though we hadn't seen each other in years, I would think of him often, but somehow, in that elevator, and being with that memory, it felt different. In retrospect, unbeknownst to me at the time, I think this was the day that Jesse left this earth and a piece of me felt the vacancy.

I wasn't the closest to Jesse in his life; that honor would be to his surrogate brother and mother, Jon and Kirsten, or his best friend, Pete, but Jesse was important to me in my life, and I believe I was important to him. I may not be the right person for the job, but I feel compelled to share the life and story of my friend. The details I may not quite get right, and I apologize to anyone who might challenge the version of what I am about to share, but this is a story of a life that I feel must be told, and more so, must be received. This is what I have pieced together from the breadcrumbs and the jigsaw of the person I had known; the retelling of a life as I understand it to be. This is the story of the life of Jesse Irish Johnson.

Born near Spokane, Washington, he was indoctrinated into the Christian Church before he could even talk. He was expected to live a life in fear of God, in chastity, in service, and of community. Early on, he took to music, learning to play the piano, and showed interest in various artistic expressions, most of which would be admonished by his leaders and peers. Hell was of great discussion in his community, and thus, intolerance of homosexuality was practiced. When he came out as a teenager, he was shunned by his Christian brothers and sisters, and ex-communicated from his church and the life he had known, without mercy. To repent, he was sent to live with family members in Salt Lake City, where they hoped he would turn "straight." Depressed, disenfranchised, and sheltered, he discovered coping in drugs. Upon the revelation of his second life, he was again kicked out of his home; a dishonorable message so often sent to gay or troubled youth that they are not worthy of love or care, and more commonly, these very people find their way to a place that will accept them without resources, a place of refuge: enter, Venice Beach, California.

The beauty of Los Angeles is that it will bow its head and welcome anyone who seeks a new life. The dangers are in which life one chooses. Jesse continued his odyssey of drugdom, at times being homeless. Soon after, he found a new community in the Downtown LA warehouse rave scene, where he traded sleeping on the beach for dancing and partying all night. Jesse was gorgeous, with angled features, hipster haircuts, watery blue eyes, and the height to match. All the boys loved him and when he smiled, his whole face lit up. Naturally, he did a bit a modeling while waiting tables at Hugo's in West Hollywood, and somewhere around this time is where he met Jon.

Jon and Jesse quickly became best friends, sharing common interests in counterculture and nightlife. Jon is the only son of Kirsten, both individuals with a practiced passion for art and theatre. They opened their family and home to Jesse, offering him not just a safe place to live, but the love and compassion that he was robbed of in his hometown. Kirsten allowed the boys to turn the home garage into a lounge space that doubled as an art studio. Jon, a veracious reader and writer took to theatre like his mother and Jesse found himself useful as a carpenter and painter in the SCV theatre scene; an unassumingly active and vibrant community, both challenging and fun, and the place where I met Jon and Jesse when I was nineteen.

Part of the same company, I initially observed them from a distance, unsure if they would accept me as someone who had not had the life experience they had; but soon, I was disarmed when they invited me to the garage, or as they called it: The Factory, an homage to Andy Warhol. Everyone hung out at The Factory. It was the center point for all the artsy theatre kids to meet and a place that anyone who frequented would remember gave a sensation that was limitless. It was as if we had all found our tribe in this small conservative town where we could laugh, and paint, or do photoshoots, and short films. In The Factory, we were free, all of us. Everything that I know about sub culture, I learned in that space from Jesse who was a true underground kid, always at the pulse of what was original, and ages before anything became trendy. He took me to my first Coachella and my first EDC, he showed me foreign films and played me Robyn's "Dancing On My Own," before it became a club hit. All moments influential in not just my personal development, but what would lend itself to my later career. Jesse shared freely and was the type of cool that so many desperately wish to be, but never reach. He defined it all.

Jesse was also warm, kind, and generous. Always cooking for others or being of use wherever he could which is why I was shocked to learn of his dark upbringing. That someone as loving and beautiful as he could have been so mistreated. But every now and then, I would get glimpses of the fear that was placed in his heart at an early age, and sometimes he would clamp up like the time that we snuck into a church to do a photoshoot; or the time I witnessed his impassioned rage when he led the charge at a Prop 8 rally. But then it would disappear as if he tucked it away in a little box in the corner of his mind, ignored, but never forgotten.

You may or may not be familiar with the neuroscientist Simon LeVay, who conducted the INAH3 study in the 1980's on men and women, to ultimately prove that sexual orientation has a biological substrate in the hypothalamus in men, thus proving that one is, in fact, born gay; a concept that challenged Christian rhetoric that being gay is a choice. Further study proved that during fetal brain development, just enough estrogen has to move from the mother to the fetus at a very specific time for a male to be born gay. The timing is just as specific and concrete as that of conception.

Throughout my life, I have had many gay men befriend me, show up for me, guard me, or champion me, much more than anyone else. I can't help but notice how gay men embody, what I believe to be, the best parts of masculinity and femininity in one person; to be so hard working and visionary, bold and nurturing, organized and creative, and above all else, innovative and brave in the constant face of adversity. It is no surprise to me that, historically, some of the greatest men have been gay, and yet, nobody wants to acknowledge this; namely the church. Leonardo di Vinci, Isaac Newton, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Julius Cesar, and Freddie Mercury just to name a few. I believe, like the church does, that the conception of life is a miracle; that the seed must be planted at just the right moment for life to occur. With this same theory, I believe that being born gay is also a miracle; development must occur at the right moment for this life to be so unique, artistic, and forward thinking. I stand firmly and will say it loud from my chest that the church has been wrong all along. Gay people are not of sin, they are of miracles.

One of my favorite passages of the Bible is Matthew 25:35-40 when God separates the people into the groups of those who will inherit the kingdom and those who will not. For those who will he says:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

The righteous then question God, unsure of when they saw him in such a condition. He then replies:

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

I will never understand, despite whatever anybody has been taught through a religious organization, how anybody could look at someone as beautiful and wonderful as Jesse, and turn him away. How the practiced thought of belief wouldn't be challenged when witnessing his spirit, and how love and mercy would not be granted.

By the time I had met him, Jesse had already lived nine lives. He graduated from CalArts and though he attempted different creative pursuits, he had difficulty following through. He was highly intelligent and I often wonder if he had a different start in life, maybe the world would have been able to see more of his greatness. The last years of his life ended in rural Washington where he worked as a laborer, something, as anyone who knew him would agree, was far beneath his artistic faculties, and was arguably the result of the demons he kept locked away.

Our lives took different paths, but the love never changed. I feel fortunate to have known him on that long journey to the middle; the kind of friendship that has different roads, but same service stations. I'm guilty of being taken by the tide of the day to day life of tasks and the mundane, as I feel most of us are in our adult lives. Eat, sleep, work, etc. Maintaining and coping. But often, I think back to Jon and Jesse and our time in The Factory, the time that reminds me to dream, because back then, being close to him, anything seemed possible. My last conversation with him was over text in 2019 where he said: 'I dream of owning my own cabaret type of place with a dystopian vibe. Cabaret at the end of the world. I just want to create a venue that explores all the facets of the arts in an exciting way.' He was a dreamer in the purest sense, and above all else, he was just a really good person. He was, as Jon described, someone who "Believed in the power of art to change lives."

I sometimes reiterate stories and anecdotes that Jesse told me about his life, and I know I will continue to do so. That I will tell my kids one day about my friend and maybe they will tell theirs, and his story, like myth, will continue, long after his hero journey has ended. I somehow still feel that he's here, like a passenger, riding the in between, looking at his life and those he knew...including me...and just maybe, he's trying to tell us something...that we mustn't let politics or religion divide us. That we must see into the heart of one another, and that his life can be an example of this.

Jesse came into this world with more aspiration than could be managed. He burned bright and then he burned out, leaving his mark on the friends he nurtured and gathered, which is truly a testimony of the truth in his heart. A lot can be said about his life, his choices, and many may question or speculate where and what could have been. We may never know, but one thing we can know for sure is that you can't burn out if you're not on fire.

Jesse Irish Johnson 1986-2024