So you have a friend who died of a heart attack and you know very well that it had to happen one day because it's a guy who had to Bible's words "No Limit "by 2 Unlimited. Whether overdose or AIDS, in a normal way or just fell asleep in the middle of the road at 4am before a semi-trailer passes through it to deliver fruit and vegetable market Capuchin in Bordeaux, it had to happen and there are even some who are ask sincerely, without trial or anything, why this had not happened earlier. Some of your friends are the most wild, most uncontrollable, the more alone.
I met Robin Hervé the first true Pride of Act Up in 1990. We had already seen far in the clubs, but I remember very well the place and moment when he came to see me to talk while marching. It was on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, 400 meters from the Bastille, almost before the building of Radio Nova. I was happy with the demo, we had large flags in front with Laurent Mouret who spun around in the air, it was sunny and Robin came and told me he wanted to do things for Act Up. I told him he could start right away, but he said he was leaving for two months in India. I was there "Sure, oh yeah, you go to India for two months and it goes so you fart in the mouth of the trip when you come back, you have even forgotten the name of ACT UP. OK.
Two months later, he landed in a meeting. That's when I learned that he kept his promises. And very soon I saw him put everyone in his pocket, one after the others. It was then discovered that this is a crazy super smart and has lots of ideas because it is a teacher for kids 6 years and therefore this Act Up did not change anything much. A great speed, he is the head of the group that organizes parties and which designs and sells T-shirts, the very important position that has live ACT UP during the early years. As Hervé knew all the clubs and bars of all bosses, it was he who actually imposed Act Up in the house. It was he who created the slogan "Dancing = Life" and especially "AIDS Is Disco" unless it is Loïc Prigent, I do not remember more.
So during the early years, Herve was well respected in ACT UP, a guy who made everyone laugh, who always had power, who could be respected too, when he began to shout everyone calmed. And then, instantly, it became a friend of clubbing. It must be understood. Hervé Robin was Bordeaux. I come from Agen and in my generation, it was always considered the wild Bordeaux were the most extravagant, most erudite, the most fashionable, most drugged, most leather, etc.. Generation later, it was more Marseille, Montpellier, Lyon. But Bordeaux were clubbing in the blood. We started very quickly to the Luna and raves Mozinor especially with my husband at the time, Eric. Our trick was always to make more noise than all the others because these raves were still straight at 90%. Herve was a delusion to which he was to break his bottles of beer on the floor and make smurf above shouting "Aciiiid. We had the whistles of Act Up in the mouth constantly and people next to us begging to stop and that is why the rave next one came with whistles and horns of ACT UP (yes we piqued a dozen or so) but it is a work of outreach to the ravers because there was always shouting slogans D-Shake . When we returned by car, we laughed so much we saw nothing and Eric was driving at 30 an hour he was so drunk. Today, it could not take more than a kilometer, there are too many cops.
Over time, Herve began to exaggerate in ACT UP. His group made a lot of money, he organized parties at the Queen who walked, but it was often broken. There is even a great story how he was known as made a fix in one evening coordinating committee rue René Boulanger and he fell to the ground and the only thing that other ACT UP could do is put a blanket over him. And the meeting continued with all the group leaders, like pros. The biggest joke was discovered in his office in ACT UP, where he placed his order books of T-shirts and all accounts of the evening for the benefit of ACT UP, there was a drawer at the bottom with full of gift checks or orders for merchandise that had not been cashed. He made items and forgot to give checks to the treasurer who was just 5 meters from him. We were not happy.
Meanwhile, Herve continued his job as a teacher and he was very good, he always took initiatives to discover ingenious as kids age 6 all the work of Keith Haring (it is then 92,93) and made them draw and discuss it and parents loved him, even if he got drunk on Saturday morning after a sleepless night on Transfer. He had authority over children, but it was right and knew them to discover thousands of things while remaining in the program. We can not ask for better.
Then I Having a little less Hervé when he shared an apartment in Montmartre with Eric. For me it was 1994 and he began to be a little too much, even though everyone said to ACT UP that researchers should have done a comparative test on him with antiretrovirals versus antiretrovirals alone + alcohol because he was always good blood test results, his CD4 count was good and they even rode in addition, it was all green, we would say that maybe you had to be smashed like him to survive even if we knew that it scientifically did not drive a minute. He was unstoppable.
The 90s have passed, he left ACT UP before me, he moved back to Bordeaux where he was again placed at the head of terrorizing the city district by district. In fact, you might wonder why I talk about it, you do not know but in fact, precisely if you're wrong, you've already seen, he terrorized Paris, Bordeaux, Spain and a great country like India so it's been a lot of people if you add.
In the late 90s, we always saw in the clubs and that's when I started yelling at him from time to time. He adored me but a little too much and when he was stuffed in a box, it was just unbearable like all alcoolos, although it was not you spit in the face like some (I'll leave it here). I was just on the dance floor trying to find a guy and I saw Herve staggering to me to offer me a beer. I said thank you, grumbling in my head because I knew what was coming. I was there to dance with a half in hand and that helps and not 3 minutes later he came back with another beer while I had not finished first and I had yelled at him "Stop it with beer, it's good like that "if he did it again 3 minutes later and sometimes I found myself like that with 3 beers. No notion of spacetime.
Herve had become a magnet for bad luck in box if felt like meeting someone and it was repeated so much, always in the same way, with such wear at the end when I arrived at a club, I check s it was there. The Queen, he pissed against the main bar. A Scream, once we saw it happen, we would dance in the shade. Every time we saw him was on the same level, so that fasting was a quiet man, funny, fully grown, and when he began to speak English, he was so irresistible that it was non stop laughter. He always called me to tell me he was going to spend a weekend in Paris to see the dance and I yawn.
Then I went to live in the countryside and the best joke was when he came to spend a weekend. It was winter, it rained a lot, he missed his train several times and ended up arriving after hours, at night by taxi. I already knew that taxis province are much nicer than Paris, but it was so adorable he helped Robin out of the car while it was stacked inside. When he arrived in the lobby, he glanced toward the fire in the fireplace that I had turned to warm and he said this great thing, with the accent of the south-west, drunk, "Oh you bé know me, I do not like the fireplace, eh. " It made me laugh so much because everybody, I repeat , everyone loves a fire in the fireplace in winter. It took two hours to sober up and it starts to make sentences with a subject, a verb and a complement.
Over time, he always called me to give news but I was getting fed up with him to tell me that had stopped drinking alcohol when I heard the previous weekend in his voice. And I kind of delirium, I agree not too long, even from friends. In addition I was in combat on the prevention and god knows what Herve was when he was drunk. He had the gift to get me out of whoppers like "I think I'll go for a month in Iran 4 years ago, when all militias and terrorists based in Iraq have passed through Iran to reach Afghanistan, where they are always elsewhere. And I said "Oh, great, you're Poz, tattooed and pierced everywhere is the war there and you approach more and more of where we grow more drugs in the area and you want me to say go ahead, good trip? You're crazy or what? . I know very well that Iran is wonderful and not so dangerous, but for a guy like that, it's like walking with a sign in the back with writing on it "Dip me in a barrel of oil with great Please feathers. "
He said "You think? "And then the phone fell from my hands and I asked him" But you look no news? You can not choose a country where there is not a global conflict? it still exists you know. " I begged him not to go because I knew he was a passenger who was not afraid of anything and could very well go without saying anything to anyone. As he no longer worked at the National Education has long, he did not know what to do and his life led him increasingly to the margins. It was Tricard all the bars and clubs Bordeaux except the polar bear, to calm him, they put a little beer in a cooler for him to believe he was drinking pressure. But this guy has added lots of bars and clubs and ended outside.
Me, in the end, I will not answer when he called for Hervé became the only person in the world that exhausted me on the phone, at the stage where I could not hold a conversation. It was like entering a fog thicker and thicker when everything was slow, very slow, so there's always plenty to do when he called back like wood because it's cold, and cook for 4 persons. Everything had become more important than a phone call from Robin because we had the impression that the guy was indestructible, physically. There are many people who died while standing in tile and they take their medications and all while he has so abused it still held, he was recovering still standing after its cooked so we ended up thinking we would all die a natural death when he had his first small heart murmur of nothing.
course we were wrong and he died Friday, Sept. 18, through the heart. It's really special to die by the heart, it really is the feelings that shed a single pain in the body, a deep emotional cramp, like a muscle that twists to death. I think Herve no longer bear his loneliness because we were not more likely to pick up the phone. But it is. It was too crazy. The jokes I here tells all his friends know them by heart. It's mythology, stories we tell when we talk about him. He is someone who has made important stuff against AIDS.
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