He’s a gem

Damian was one of a kind.

People say that about people they know, but he truly was an original, probably bordering on odd.

I don’t know any man in his 30s who drinks sherry like an elderly British woman while petting his cat.

Bond villaindom aside, Damian had an endless capacity for information.

There is no other person I’ve ever met who could rattle off Congressional district representatives by district number, or whip out an obscure world’s capital.

He became a walking Wikipedia – for God’s sake, he wrote and edited a staggering portion of it.

It’s no wonder he barely slept.  I’ve never known a person who didn’t have a discernible sleeping schedule.  I stayed up late chatting with him on my family computer – and before I woke up he’d have one or two messages or funny jokes sent to me.

We spoke every single day for over 15 years.

Actually, we had one disagreement, and didn’t speak for a few days, then we both forgot what it was about and moved it along.

The conversation was endless, and goddammit it was funny.

Damian’s joke-telling abilities were only rivaled by his laugh.  He was unrelentingly goofy, in the best possible way.

In remembering Damian, people have said he was nice, which I consider derogatory.

He was not nice.  He was a huge bitch that knew when it was appropriate to be polite.

And he could even be mean.  He hated people who had contempt for God’s most important creation: life.

Yes, he was pro-life, but you wouldn’t catch him outside the abortion clinic yelling at women – he was crucially pro-woman and pro-mother.  He had a fantastic mother, who he loved dearly, and who set an incredible example.

It was with women in some of the most vulnerable situations in life when he exemplified true loving kindness.  He understood them, he protected their dignity.

He was truly joyful in seeing his father’s church grow, accepting new arrivals into the converted, people from all walks of life and all countries.

When he brought out the traditional values of the converts, he expressed absolute glee, a show we both hated.

What we loved was Golden Girls, and what we loved the most was a parody called Golden Shower Girls.  It’s the most offensive thing ever created – warping the Golden Girls narrative of four single women in Miami to four tranny prostitutes in Miami, doing drugs, robbing men, and sleeping with Burt Reynolds.

It was an absolute treat to watch this live, with him in my living room, terrifying those in attendance.

But that’s what we did best – we scared the shit out of people in the best possible way – from the beginning of the blogging era with him at Conservathink to me at Bulletproof Diction, to shamelessly boosting Sarah Palin’s VP candidacy, to staying up late and watching Red Eye on Fox News, all the way through the Trump era to the overthrow of Roe.  

Damian was more involved than people three times his age.  Living in New York, he shamelessly met everyone he could, and approached recruiting people of all background into the conservative cause with unrelenting fervor. 

Yet with all that, I don’t think it was politics that interested him – it was people.

He had a yearning to connect with people on any level possible.  He gave people his time freely and without question, just to talk.  No one ever left a conversation with Damian feeling worse – maybe just a little exhausted because two hours had passed.

At times, he drove me crazy, which is rich for someone who never had a driver’s license.

When he was here – and after I clowned him for a good couple of hours about being unable to legally operate a vehicle in his 30s – we talked about what was next.

He wanted to travel more, to spend more time in the UK.  He considered moving to Houston because he loved the food and weather.

He wanted to record a podcast with us.

I was always pushing him to do more.  He should’ve had his own show, his blog should’ve been updated daily and subscriber-based.  He should’ve been a personality – he had more than most of them combined.

But that wasn’t him.  He was stubborn and worked on his own terms.  No job could contain someone who ate facts for breakfast.

Damian left me with many friends I met as a result of him.  No one like him, of course, but wonderful souls who have come together to remember him and continue his legacy through becoming better and closer friends.

Over the course of the past few days, I’ve spun through the Kubler-Ross scale in reverse.  

I accepted the loss, I’m going to live in denial that he’s gone.

The conversation was never supposed to end, and I don’t want it to.