Mark Baumer, 1983-2017
Mark Baumer got one of my old best friends into punk and hardcore music, growing up in Maine. He went to Wheaton College, in Norton, Ma., on a baseball scholarship, and told me he knocked a hit off a Major Leaguer once. He wrote that he didn't know what to do when he finished college, and started writing. When we all lived in Boston, Mark moved there, with his girlfriend, and began selling "Yankees Suck" shirts with us. His spot was by Gillian's. He always did well. Baumer, my friend A.J. said, had a day job on top of selling shirts, and also wrote movie and record and book reviews for the Boston Phoenix. I never much saw him, just heard of his superhuman efforts.
A few years later, we were living in New York and Mark came to stay with us for a few weeks. It was the most time we would spend together. There was a taco place a few blocks away, one that Anthony Bourdain liked, Tres Hermanos, and after trying it once, Mark took his meals there. It was incredibly cheap and good. He just inhaled it. It was January 2010, and Floorpunch reunited that month -- this was the first one they did -- with Invasion. Everyone who lived in Boston and had sold shirts went, whether we were living there or not. Before the show, which was in Edison, N.J. we went to Harold's, the deli, which is also in Edison. Harold's Deli had a lore about it since they served sandwiches the size of car seats and Floorpunch would always shout them out in interviews. But the show was on Saturday night and Harold's was packed, so Mark and my friend Matt had to get theirs takeout: two pounds of sliced meat each in butcher paper, eight slices of rye bread, packets of mustard and a plastic knife in a big brown bag. Disappointed to have paid for groceries from a restaurant, Mark ate the sandwich off the hood of his(1) cream-colored C-class Mercedes in the VFW's parking lot, happy to take part in a legend.
I didn't see Mark much that night or after. He went to the Stop and Think reunion in 2015, taking the bus down from Providence ... Mark wanted to spend the summer in Texas watching Minor League baseball and writing about it but got into his MFA and went to Providence. A few years later he was vegan, all plant-based, and just as big. Baumer had giant legs and a giant back, and looked like a gorilla under his long hair and glasses. He wore a gorilla mask in the Wheaton class photo. He had a .510 slugging percentage there, hit 15 home runs and 6 triples, and was hit by pitch 26 times, a school record when he graduated. His team reached Division III nationals his senior year. The Daily Caller called him a hippie when they wrote about him, but I'm not sure anyone there could hit a triple off college pitching.
Mark was the most direct writer I've read. He wrote books, poetry, non-fiction ... it was blunt and funny. There was a lot of it. He would experiment ... Mark's writing was self-assured, unapologetic and empathetic. His short sentences were trippy ... Mark wrote more than any of us, and had a long line of posts on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, and videos on YouTube. None of those seemed throwaway, or half-assed, or not himself. Disposable posts on ephemeral outlets had the same energy and permanence as his biggest projects ... or maybe his real work was transitory, with another big thing just ahead. He'd keep his head down... those small things filled out the beautiful artistic statement that I think his life was ...
Mark got his MFA and then worked at a Brown library in Providence. In an interview he said he would get up in the morning, meditate, exercise, work, meditate during lunch, write, eat vegetables ... a higher level of life. Sometime around then he became very politically active. He was reading about climate change and the environment and writing about it and protesting, and this past October he took an unpaid leave of absence from his job and began walking across the country barefoot to raise money and awareness. He had walked across the country before and it went well. On this trip he posted on Twitter and Instagram, took video, photos, made jokes ... it was art.
Mark passed away Saturday, Jan. 21, in Florida. He was hit by a car on his walk, day 101. It doesn't seem real, and it's not right. It won't be. It's hard to understand his death. His life was a thing of joy to everyone he met ... there is this line from this interview with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a mystic who marched with Martin Luther King on Selma. It was Vietnam, and Heschel was asked to talk to young people about their dread. He said:
"...that there is a meaning beyond absurdity, every little deed counts, every word has power, and that we can do everyone our share to redeem the world, despite all the absurdities, frustration and disappointment. And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live life as if it were a work of art."
I think Mark got closer to that than anyone. Mark was a heroic and beautiful person. It's a tragedy he will not get to grow into the beautiful foundation he spent his life setting. His light is now somewhere else. We were so lucky to live in a world where he freely was himself. He will outlive us all.
Rest in peace and power, Mark Baumer.
(1) Matt asked him if the Benz was his and he didn't give an answer ... it might not have been his.
You can read more about Mark, and find his social media, on his site, and can donate to his cause here. I suggest doing both.