Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Fritz died just over forty-five years ago, and then again this past June. Most of us who knew him were familiar with some version of the story: it was June 20, 1980—the summer solstice, because Fritz had a thing for solstices—and he was in Alaska for, what else, a Grateful Dead concert. Something happened, it is not clear what, but Fritz described it as a kind of death and rebirth. It was just one of Fritz’s many lives, deaths, and rebirths, just one of the many health crises he succumbed to and then miraculously overcame, through a combination of faith, prayer, music, and a form of self-medication that bordered on alchemy. Fritz thus lived, died, and was reborn more times than anyone can count, either as augustwest80@gmail.com--a reference to the Dead’s Wharf Rat and, no doubt, that 1980 event again--or as ashesrising@gmail.com--no doubt a reference to the same or a similar event--or as thepilgrimshadow@gmail.com, a reference, perhaps (I regret having never asked him), to a famous trick of shadow and light that appears on the façade of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as if he, Fritz, had used this address to be there always in spirit, the shadow pilgrim of that pilgrim shadow, making his way along the road to Compostela. Because there was no better pilgrim in this world than Fritz Doherty, and no better friend or companion to accompany you along the path. It will be hard to walk without him.
Michael Naas
