R.I.P. Chris Pedigo (1971-2006)

Chris was a regular visitor at the Pink House, and one of my good friends at UNC. He was hilarious, generous, kind-hearted, and a co-conspirator in many capers.

For several years Chris lived in the gorgeous, decaying mansion known as the Russian House. He spoke Russian, French, and was fluent in a couple other languages. In the spring of '92, I was his campaign manager when Chris ran for Senior Class Vice President on a ticket with Caroline Philson in the top spot. We lost, but it was a very fun campaign, and the Caroline and Chris team had the coolest posters of any candidates for student office that I saw in my entire time at Carolina.


In the summer of '92, our paths memorably crossed for several weeks in Paris, when my brother and I took a trip over there and hung out with Chapel Hill ex-pats like Pedigo, his friend Aaron Gannon, globe trotting journalist and Pink House roomie Kyle York Spencer, and future Pink House couch surfer John Hamilton Palmer.

Chris was gay, but closeted in college, even after he contracted HIV in Paris and returned to Chapel Hill. Living with HIV was hard for Chris in the early 90s. A full decade after the epidemic burst into the public eye, progress on developing life-saving drugs remained painfully slow. It was a direct result of right-wing politicians like Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) underfunding the nation's public health response, under the criminally homophobic, warped belief that AIDS victims deserved to die.


Chris enrolled in numerous experimental trials of AIDS drugs at Duke University, which kept him alive until more effective treatments came onto the market a few years later. As time went on, Chris’ medical condition left him facing increasingly perilous financial straits. But he kept his sense of humor and refused to give up. Sadly, I lost touch with Chris after he moved to Florida in the late 90s, where he lived and worked in West Palm Beach.

Death Notices - News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) 1/2/07, B6

Christopher James Pedigo
MARCH 9, 1971 - DECEMBER 29, 2006

Christopher James Pedigo, 35, passed on Friday, December 29, 2006.

He is survived by his loving mother; Elizabeth Ann Pedigo; father, James; younger brother Taylor; and friends.

Despite the many obstacles set before him due to a long battle with compounding physical ailments; armed with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge he achieved various levels of advanced education and was fluent in several foreign languages, along with being an accomplished pianist, for all of which we are very proud.

Chris, your enthusiastic conversation and bright eyed smile will be missed, yet will remain in our hearts forever.

Kyle hops a plane back to Paris

Kylie, what's up. How you doing, hon. Hope this letter reaches you before you've hopped a plane to Paris to be with that Frog boy.


Olivier and Kyle, Spring '93

I am writing to you because I didn't want you to miss out on your chance to win ten million dollars. Don't forget to return the winning entry before September 3rd.


Kyle got one like this, too.

Jay and Lydia tell me that tricks with you are good, that you've had a good summer and all of that. I am so disappointed that we all didn't get to go to Block Island together, but hey, it'll happen someday. That Monday, Jenny and I got up around noon and both felt really sick. We decided to stay home and rest all day instead of coming to Watch Hill, because we were driving back South the next day. So hope everybody didn't worry about us being buried somewhere.

It was a fun visit in Rhode Island, though. Jenny got to know my family much better, and we did things together like going to a Native American musuem in Bristol, visiting friends in Boston, clubbing at Club Babyhead in Providence, going out to the Cape, and attending this fundraiser for Save The Bay at Senator Pell's summer house in Newport.


Jenny at Pink House, Spring '93.

That was fun. Totally catered, free drinks and food, hobnobbing with the politically active high society crowd and having power chats with all four of my congressional representatives before the night was through. We even sneaked into a cocktail party thrown for donors who had given $10,000 or more. Mike Wallace and his wife were the guests of honor. He looked like an old motherfucker.

So, anyway, hope that you drop the Pink House a line from Paris every once in awhile. N'Gai will be in New York next year, as will Dana, and Rashmi, and this friend of mine John Hamilton Palmer, who is up there working for Hearst magazines again. We met him when he was on an internship for Vogue in Paris, right after you had left town. Thus, I will have many reasons to visit the city, and perhaps our schedules will coincide at some point when you fly back in for the weekend to buy bagels. That ten million you've got coming will probably lead to many life changes for you, I have a feeling.


Jay and Olivier, Spring '93

Say hello to Olivier for me, and take care of yourself, hon. Be especially careful of old men who sit muttering to themselves wearing long, dark coats. These men are chronic masturbators and are probably lying in wait for you.

- Letter to Kyle

Instinctive travels up and down the East Coast

This is your main man Erik the revolutionary guru, coolin' in Chapel Hill at the Pink House. What's up! I got your eminently digable letter that youse sent me from Jerusalem. It sounded like you were up to positive tricks as usual, causing trouble, skeezing on bodacious cuties, fighting the IMO powers that be in occupied Palestine.

It's now Friday. You know what I'm going to do tonight? I think Derek Shadid just got back in town from his internship in New York. Maybe I'll give him a call. You wouldn't believe what a treehouse the Pink House has been this summer. Numerous random passengers are along for the ride at all times. People breeze in, slide out. This shit happens constantly.

I myself only got back to town about a week ago. In fact, I read your letter my first night back, up real late with Lem. It was a trip. We were listening to some very psychedelic Hendrix at the time, a song called "1983...A Merman I Should Hope To Be," from Electric Ladyland. At one point the song talks about giving a shout to all the friends who aren't around, and I had dragged out a picture of you, just to enhance the letter reading experience, so it was cool. Remind me to show and give you copies of the pictures I took at the Inauguration when you get back in the fall. They turned out very satisfactory.

Before returning to Chapel Hill, I had spent nearly the entire month of June traveling instinctively, all up and down the East Coast. My journey began when out of the blue, I heard from a friend of mine named John Hamilton Palmer. This is a cat I met in Paris last summer. He was working for Vogue magazine at the time on an editorial assistant's internship, hanging out with supermodels and DJ's at cool clubs all over the city. He traveled with my brother Jared on to Amsterdam and then to Milan, Italy, where his Dad lives and works in the fashion industry.

Anyway, this friend of mine John returned to the States at the end of last summer, and has been living with the rest of his family in Savannah, Georgia, ever since. So then he calls me up, and tells me that he's headed to New York, where he's going to be working for Conde Nast again, the publishing company that owns Vogue. He says he's leaving in a few weeks, so on the spur of the moment, I decide to take a little road trip down to visit him.

I convince Chris Pedigo to come with me. At this point, Chris was getting ready to leave for Middlebury, Vermont in a little while, where he's taking summer Russian classes.

We roll out of Chapel Hill on a Wednesday afternoon, and make it to our first destination, Myrtle Beach, S.C., before 10 pm that night. See, the Digable Planets were playing there.

(We met) this woman (who) knew Myrtle Beach really well and after chilling with me and Chris for awhile decided she'd take us out and show us around town, meaning all the remaining after hours bars and clubs. Cool! Her name was Jean, and we went with her all over town. Everywhere we went, the scene was the same. Young, horny kids, lots of women wearing sexy summer beach clothes, everybody essentially looking to get laid.

The next day, we get on the road by late afternoon and drive southward, towards Savannah, Georgia.

That night, we hang out with my friend John. Chris also knew him from last summer in Paris, so it was like a mini-reunion. Anyway, he took us out clubbing. We got into two clubs for a couple of dollars, free drinks because he knew the bartenders, and split our time between both all night since they were totally within walking distance. A fun night.

The next day was Friday. We got up, chilled, and got on the road, bound for Atlanta. Blew into town late afternoon, and headed directly for Little Five Points, which is sort of the Greenwich Village of Atlanta. Very funky. Here we collected club flyers, local magazines, and other information about the nightlife that evening.

Then, we sped all around the city, scouting out all the nightclubs where we had free passes to get in for the night. Some people in Little Five Points stopped us on the street and thought my friend John was so beautiful (he used to be a male model) that they put us all onto the guest list at one joint. We hit four clubs that night and had many adventures.

...

Damn, man, I'm not even half done telling you about my instinctive travels of the last month. Maybe in a future letter I'll pick up the narrative. Just to give you a taste of stories to come, from Atlanta, we took John back home to Chapel Hill with us, chilled for a week, then I drove him back down to Savannah. During that week at home we threw a mad party at the Pink House, attendance levels approaching six hundred or so. Then I headed north, stopping in D.C. to hang with my friend Dana for half a week before continuing on to Rhode Island. There, I saw friends and family, and spent a particularly adventure-filled long weekend in Boston before coming back to Chapel Hill. Swung through D.C. again on the way down to chill further with Dana. I had planned to head further south to Miami for that weekend (this was this past weekend), and hang with this woman Rashmi Airan, but at the last minute decided that the journey had to end.

So here I am, back in Chapel Hill.

I think that in early August, Jenny and I are going to travel up north to Rhode Island for one or two weeks. Lydia and Jay may come with us, and we'll chill with Kyle at some point, who's working at a community newspaper in a small town on the Connecticut-Rhode Island border. When I was going through D.C., I found out that Erica Salmon (the one we stayed with) is living on campus at GWU this summer, trying to do some painting. I'm glad you had time to write, and please write back. I'd love to know what's up with my boy Firas and his many adventures in Jerusalem and the surrounding environs, dealing with Israeli security forces, hooking up with chicks from Duke. N'Gai just received your letter, too. He says hello. You know what? We were just watching Yo! MTV Raps and a video came on by Pete Nice and Daddy Rich. Pete Nice used to be with 3rd Bass, and everybody in the room was like, yo, check this motherfucker out! He looks totally like Firas!

- Letter to Firas, 7/3/93

A famous landmark, and very pink

How's life with you at the University of Iowa? Is Iowa City treating you well? My old roommate Clint, who's from Iowa, no longer lives with me and my other housemates in our Pink House. (I did tell you about the house I stay in here in Chapel Hill, and how it's a famous landmark, and very pink, right...?) But he's still in town. I was trying to call him tonight so he could tell me about some cool places in Iowa City to let you know about, but he's not around. On the other hand, Iowa City is so small that you've probably found them all by now anyway. Clint's Dad is a professor at your school...his name is Tom Curtis, but I can't remember what department he teaches in.

Yeah, anyway, so you ran into Kyle in Prague, huh? She ended up working at the Prague Post not only throughout the summer, but also all this past semester. In fact, she's still there now, but definitely plans on returning to New York by Christmas time. Then she's coming back to Chapel Hill next semester to live with us. I really wish that I could have made it to Prague while we were over there, but there's always next time.

She wasn't the only one who ended up staying in Europe longer than planned, either. I guess she told you that Jared didn't come home with me when I left Paris! He essentially decided that because we'd spent three whole weeks there, he had been thoroughly gypped. So he figured he'd hang around and see more of Europe. I left on schedule, and one of his friends decided to fly there and travel around with him for awhile. They went to Amsterdam, then to Milan, and finally to London. I think it was just after you left that we met this really cool guy named John Hamilton Palmer, who worked for Vogue magazine. He took us out with him to all these clubs, including two amazing ones, Club D'Etoile and Le Bains (Douche). Anyway, John was also traveling with Jared and his friend for a while.

Jared finally returned home about a month after I did, to our parents' immense relief.

Get this...you remember our other friend Chris Pedigo? The one we went out to dinner with at Troy's restaurant on the last day you were in Paris? Well, his whole rationale for being in France was that he had won a scholarship to travel to the former Soviet Union all summer long. He originally planned to stop in Paris only on his way there, staying only for a couple of weeks. He ended up drinking all of his scholarship money and staying in Paris for six months, living outside of the city in a chateau. The closest he got to the former Soviet Union was being introduced by his wealthy hosts to the aristocracy of the exiled Russian community - poets, princes and princesses - going to balls with them and getting smashed, drinking coffee in cafes, that sort of thing.

Pedigo fell enormously into debt on his American Express account when he loaned these supposedly wealthy hosts of his an amazing $20,000...! This is money that as of today, they still aren't supposed to be sending him here in the U.S. "until next week." Pretty wild, crazy stuff. I feel like I'm the only one who missed out, though. Everybody else got to have fun in Paris and the rest of Europe for much longer than I did...you included!

If you have any desire to take a roadtrip next semester and come South, feel free to come and stay with me in Chapel Hill. It's a lot like both Iowa City and Champaign-Urbana, only better.

- Letter to Susan Campbell