File: proud life john grube 614

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Notes: Image is John Grube 614. Theres a poem at the end of the file that Id
like to use like a pull quote but with a tag.
Hed
John Grube
Kik
XXX XX, 1930 - Apr 21, 2008
Story credit
James Dubro
This month poet and artist John Grube passed away at the age of 77 of
Parkinsons-related causes [JD: How long had he been ill/hospitalized?]. He
was perhaps best known [JD: agree?] as one of the members of gay art
collective JAC along with Alex Liros and Clarence Barnes which
documented gay events, demonstrations and early Pride marches in Toronto
in the 1980s.
Born in Toronto to [JD: parents names? Professions? Any siblings?], Grube
was a career academic, teaching English at University of Windsor and later
creative writing at the Ontario College of Art (now the Ontario College of Art
and Design), where he worked for more than 20 years. [JD: Confirm]
I first met Grube in 1970 and we remained good friends until his death. We
spoke almost daily for more than 30 years. He was a passionate and
opinionated individual who inspired ambivalent feelings in many, but theres
no doubt that he cared deeply about our community and its institutions.
Grube first became an activist in the late 1960s when he helped to organize
a protest in support of a fired Jewish professor. But it wasnt until the Toronto
bathhouse raids in the 1980s that Grube came out publicly as a gay activist.
I recall being at a protest against antigay crusader Anita Bryant with him in
1979. There were some high-profile speakers, including Margaret Atwood,
and a fair number of reporters. Grube was nervous about being there; at that
time he didnt want to be recognized as an OCA professor nor identified by
the media as a gay man.
The raids in 1981 changed all that. From that time on Grube was quite
outspoken as a gay activist, becoming the unofficial spokesperson for the JAC

collective and publishing the essay No More Shit, which dealt with the
troubled relationship between gay men and the police force.
Grubes experiences and obsessions found their way into his poetry and
fiction. In his 1997 book of short fiction, Im Supposed to Be Crazy and Other
Stories, there are echoes of his own life including stories set around the
bathhouse raids and the fired University of Windsor professor. Similarly in his
[JD: 200X?] book of poetry God, Sex and Poetry he explored situations and
subjects from his own life and the lives of those close to him. One of his
poems in which a young man who is shamed by his father in front of his
grandmother for being a hustler before the grandmother takes her
grandsons side was included in the anthology Seminal, the first collection
of Canadian gay poetry that was published last year by Arsenal Pulp Press. A
devout Anglican, Grubes poetry often combined eroticism and theology, as
in the poem Finale.
Grube advocated for the mentorship between older gay men and young gay
men not for sex, though attraction was certainly a part of it. He enjoyed
the challenge of dealing with young people and was invigorated by their
energy. When he retired in the early 90s he soon found he missed that
dynamic and spent a few years volunteering with the Triangle Program.
He was also an advocate for older homos, participating in Gays and Lesbians
Aging in the 90s and leading an oral history project called Foolscap which
interviewed scores of older gay activists. Some of his findings were published
in the Journal of Homosexuality [JD: When?].
Although Grube could be quite abrasive he could also be very supportive,
encouraging many to be true to themselves, particularly where their work
was concerned. He was the one to encourage me to give up a career in
academia and become a journalist in the 1970s.
John was an early and encouraging advisor on some of my very first forays
into fiction writing, aside from our various social encounters over the years,
writes novelist and Xtras book reviewer Jim Bartley. [He was] a lovely man
with a ready dry wit barbed when needed that was sometimes easy to
miss.
It saddens me greatly to think we have lost John, writes activist and
politico Bob Gallagher, who was one of the founders of the Foundation for
Equal Families. While I had not kept up with him in recent years, I often
thought of him. He made a very profound impact on me probably much
more than he realized. Our conversation on the concept of community and
identity and political action were seminal events in my thinking and
development.

At his request, Grubes remains were cremated and will be scattered about
one of Torontos gay landmarks.
[pull quoteish]
Strip! God is making an inspection
Your nipples grow erect as he nears.
He made you wait, beg for his attention.
He is playing with his creation.
John Grubes poem Finale, published in God, Sex and Poetry