John Perry Barlow, JFK Jr., and a Night of Grief I Can’t Forget

Watching the wildly fashionable tv bid Love Story took maine backmost to a unusual week successful my past. One time successful April 1994, I was moving successful a workplace flat that I utilized arsenic an office. I divided the outgo with Cynthia Horner, a psychiatrist who’d precocious moved retired to unrecorded with her boyfriend, the songwriter and cyberspace philosopher John Perry Barlow, who was a person of mine. Late successful the day my woman called maine with the shocking quality that Cynthia, conscionable shy of her 30th birthday, was dead. I called Barlow, who told maine that Cymthia had passed distant abruptly connected a plane. Both of them had suffered from a atrocious flu the erstwhile week, and the microorganism had been silently attacking her heart. I dropped everything and headed to Barlow’s place. For the adjacent six hours, Barlow and I cried, drank, and head-banged successful the aftermath of the inexplicable, on with different friend. That person was nary alien to tragedy. He was John F. Kennedy Jr.

Barlow, who died successful 2018 astatine property 70, was known for galore things. He was the self-described inferior lyricist of the Grateful Dead, a proselytizer of the Internet, cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a networker nonpareil. Not to notation a cardinal fig successful WIRED’s aboriginal days. He was besides among the closest friends of the alleged American prince, the lad of our martyred president. The relationship was nary secret—Barlow was an inveterate name-dropper. Still, the pairing was fascinating and said thing astir some parties.

The transportation began successful the summertime of 1977. Barlow was tending his household ranch successful Pinedale, Wyoming, erstwhile Jackie Kennedy called astatine the proposition of a communal friend. As Barlow wrote successful his posthumously published autobiography, Mother American Night, Jackie wanted her 17-year-old son, JFK Jr., to get a sensation of rugged ranch life. Barlow, successful his retelling, said yes, and augmented the teen’s ranch chores with LSD. Things they did portion dosing included agelong drives successful Barlow’s motortruck and dropping explosives down state wells. They became close, and implicit the years Barlow moved from a reprobate begetter fig to much of a friend.

It was a lifelong connection. Barlow writes of attending a 1993 Prince performance with Kennedy wherever some were erstwhile again tripping. Kennedy felt that the assemblage was excessively restrained, and helium urged Barlow to get up and dance. As Barlow writes, each of Radio City Music Hall joined in. Later, aft Barlow met Cynthia, the 2 would double-date with Kennedy and his then-girlfriend, Daryl Hannah. After the nighttime I spent with Barlow and Kennedy, Hannah flew to New York and helped successful the postmortem readying for a memorial service. She seemed to beryllium a beauteous person.

In 1994, Kennedy moved connected from Hannah and wooed the charismatic Carolyn Bessette. Barlow became a confidant of his friend’s caller sweetheart—even becoming portion of the ceremonial astatine their intimate wedding successful 1996. One representation shows Barlow preparing for the formalities with JFK Jr., Ted Kennedy, and the priest. I don’t cognize what Barlow said to grant the couple, but I’d ideate the lyricist who wrote “Estimated Prophet” delivered trenchant words blending drama and insight.

In Mother American Night, Barlow provides an alternate mentation for wherefore Kennedy’s Cessna took disconnected astatine sunset, resulting successful a nighttime formation that culminated successful the man’s death, on with the deaths of his woman and her sister. Barlow says that helium had conscionable sent his 2,500 closest friends the quality that his parent had died. Kennedy, helium says, was precocious to the airdrome due to the fact that helium was composing a agelong condolence email to Barlow. Reasons for the precocious takeoff aside, Barlow claims that helium had antecedently fixed Kennedy a informing that was yet ignored: “When you suffer show of the skyline don’t look for it. Just enactment your eyes connected the instrumentality and judge it.”