No One Left on Earth Like Kris

No One Left on Earth Like Kris

by Don Baird

sf bay times - 11/15/01

It took me by complete surprise when I read it in an e-mail from a friend who obviously thought I knew about it already, as it had been in the gay newspapers locally but I somehow missed it. As far as I know, the queens didn't produce a makeshift shrine at the B of A on 18th and Castro like when Lucille Ball or Princess Diana died, so the actual news managed to evade me that our community lost a member who has always stood out in my mind as a true original, a master at her many creative endeavors, from her amazingly funny pitch-perfect work as a cartoonist, her incredible ability and masterful skill with the written word and the multitude of styles of writing she embraced over the years - poetry, prose, lyrics, speeches, sermons, spoken word and the nearly lost art of storytelling, perhaps what she was best at...

I believe I first met Kris Kovic at a staff meeting or party for a now-defunct local gay community paper we both worked for in the late 80's. She was a regular cartoonist whose contributions were hilarious depictions of dyke life, from ribald and sexually explicit to politically urbane and self-deprecating, Kris poked fun at the lesbian scene she was unquestionably a part of with a refreshing honesty and candor that really chiseled away at the walls of separatism between gay men and lesbians...

One time she invited us to one of her organized readings at Red Dora's Bearded Lady Café and we arrived just as they started to show a short film by a local dyke filmmaker. We were the only men present, me, Marc Geller and Adam Block. We took our seats and the film started, which was simply a series of odd tortuous things inflicted upon someone's penis, including pounding a nail in the end of it, and letting a jar of stunned wasps loose on it, and a few other choice, well beyond pleasurable manipulations. The dykes were roaring with laughter and various cat calls and when the lights were turned up they all turned around and looked at us and we looked back at them and we all burst into laughter. That was typical of Kris, pushing for a dynamic that was unfamiliar or unusual or just plain funny, linking varied people together who might not generally mix it up, often bringing talents together that could benefit from or inspire each other or collaborate or just have dialogue and conceive of new possibilities. She always seemed to be thinking of infinite possibilities and capabilities when considering her fellow artistic peers...

Her enthusiasm in this way never waned. One time about ten years ago Kris called myself and Marc Geller and Adam Block on the phone and asked if we would meet her at a bar in the Castro one early evening. We all assembled at the chosen place and Kris announced that it was her 40th birthday and after being clean and sober for eight years she had made the conscious decision to step off the wagon, and she couldn't think of three people she'd rather be in the company of for this auspicious occasion than us. I was so honored and couldn't help but think, if she's this much fun sober I can't even imagine how much fun she might be in her planned departure from abstinence. I was also reminded of her whole-hearted endorsement of my own proclivities towards certain illicit substances and the forthright pro-drug, pro-honesty mini-crusade I had begun in my columns. She supported my position and did so while she herself was still very much clean and sober. I was always impressed by this because in the late 80's AA groups were terribly rabid and overwhelmingly large and they knew it all and reminded me of the Jehovah witness people that used to go door to door when I was little with their glassy-eyed look and Night Of The Living Dead creepiness, telling you what to believe, knowing what you were and what you must do to save yourself...