eric gerlitz: 1975-1999

to eric, with swcc:
I wish you could have seen the advances they've made in treating cancer in the last seven years. i don't know if it would have helped. Your website has been taken over by squatters that have exploited your most popular search terms. Gerlitz.com now sells 'virus' sneakers. Despite that, though, a Google search for 'eric gerlitz' leads to three pages of your personal war against email virus hoaxes... some in other languages (particularly German....heheheheheh). You clearly had an impact on both the corporate and academic worlds when you posted that simple little page about how it was all a lie. I think you would have wanted it this way, too -- not for people to immediately find out that you had died, or where you were buried... but for everyone to see the truth... for everyone to talk about what you wanted to do to help protect the Internet.

thank you for introducing me to a style of music that was just finding its feet when you got sick. there is one mix in particular that i wanted to play for you. even people that can't dance love it. your advice/gentle prodding made me seek out and groove (in private) to a sound that is still new and dangerous to most of the people that surround me. eminem says that nobody listens to techno, but we both know he's wrong. I wish I could take you for a cruise down some scary dirt road, making it seem like I didn't know how to drive stick, and then almost wreck your car again. (every time i see a blue plymouth hatchback, I check to make sure you're not just super-incognito.) I wanted you to hear taking back sunday. i think it would have really grown on you, like it did on me.

you were 24. I'm 24 now. part of me is glad that you're not here to see the colossal mess my life has become. let's just say that there would be no internet memorial for me. i know you would still be proud of me, though. thanks for everything. + i miss you.

rule #0: we don't always get what we want.
rule #1: kein mehr lügen.