Jeoff Bull 1965-2018

Jeoff Bull was my oldest friend.

I was probably around 6 years old when I met him. My family had just moved to Ottawa and I was looking for friends on my first day in the new city. I went to the nearby school yard and saw two boys my age playing Cowboys and Indians. I remember that they were shirtless– running and whooping and jumping under the sun.

Jeoff was one of those boys, and when he saw me sitting alone watching, he stopped for a moment and asked me if I wanted to play.

There was nothing in the world that I wanted to do more.

And so we played.

It’s funny how people come to us, how the course of a life can be directed by one lucky encounter. For me, this was one such encounter, and for the next 45 years I considered him amongst my very best friends. He died on January 2nd, the cancer a wave that broke into him, spreading everywhere with a merciless and astonishing velocity.

The man, you should know, was a goddamn genius.

He really was.

He understood, felt and retained everything. It seemed that there was nothing he did not know, nothing that he could not explain if asked. And he could do so in such a deeply compassionate and penetrating way that the explanation itself was a work of art. And I swear, as you listened to him you could feel his words gently lifting you from your body.

However, his intelligence, which must have been a burden at times, remained second to his soul. He felt thing so acutely and so deeply. When he released himself into music, song or dance– something he did with great passion and talent– he was transformed. Like some sort of shaman, he became the incarnation of what we all felt inside, but were ourselves unable to articulate. It felt like he was connecting you directly to the source, to the universal well from which all inspiration and mystery came.

There are a million other things I could tell you about Jeoff, too:

He was a born teacher.

His mixed tapes, often containing cut-out collages on the cover, were treasures.

He grew up with a big German Shepherd named Rex.

He was probably, without knowing it at all, the coolest person I have ever known.

He had Phd in literature.

The gifts he gave you lasted a lifetime.

But the most important thing about him was his inextinguishable love for his wife and daughter. It was the fire that burned in his beautiful and generous heart.

The man was a true mensch, one who left bigger footprints than he ever could have imagined, and it was a privilege to share time in this world with him.

Remain in light, Mister Bull.