February 2000
s m u g
feature
by Leslie Harpold

Never Enough Time

Even as an abstraction, it's heartbreaking: a smart young man, full of energy and passion, a newlywed, well on the path to career success and a magnificent friend to those who were privileged to know him dies suddenly. Because the man in the description is Smug writer, professional journalist, and my loyal friend Ben Auburn, please trust me when I say that there are no words that expand to describe the empty place where he stood.

Ben had this very sincere brand of enthusiasm for the things and the people he cared about. He remembered birthdays, said nice things about people behind their backs, and always said thank you, even when he was doing you a favor. If he liked something, he would tell you why, and try to help you find the handle that could convince you to like it too. Rather than a sales pitch, it was an earnest attempt to share something he found value and joy in.

I hate that I have to write about Ben in the past tense from now on, that I won't be able to go over the wish list for 2000 in December to see how many came true, that I won't get impassioned emails urging me to go buy records that have just come out he thinks I'd like. I'll miss the phone calls announcing that he'll be in New York for the day, but if I can find an hour in the afternoon, he'd love to have coffee, and the gossipy sessions where we'd trade tidbits about the publishing, rock and web worlds. I always appreciated that no matter how busy he was he made time for me, told me both his good news and bad, and listened to mine. I had planned on being friends with Ben a long time. How could I not, having had the good fortune to meet someone so large hearted, small egoed, funny and kind?

More than my loss though, the whole Smug staff as well as me mourns for his wife family, and other friends who feel this loss wherever they look. The people in whose lives and hearts Ben inhabited space daily will feel the absence for a long time. I am just honored to be able to count myself among those who's lives he touched and that much richer for the two years he was part of my world, and the generous contributions he made to Smug.

I never was much good at saying goodbye, preferring to keep them brief, so I could conceal my sadness, but this goodbye was far too quick and untimely. Now with this opportunity to express publicly anything I feel went unsaid and hoping that the information would somehow seep into the cosmos, I'm only left with two words: Thank you.

leslie@smug.com

in the junk drawer

featurecar
net
worth
chair
ac/dcgun
smoking
jacket
barcode
field
recordings
pie
feed
hollywood
lock
target
audience
scissors
decomposingdice
compulsionvise
posedowncheese
the
biswick
files
toothbrush
mystery
date
wheelbarrow
and such
and such
hat
blabfan
kissing
booth
martini






     
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