Every life lost to drugs and addiction has the potential to be a huge enormous loss. None of us can ever know wholly what turns someone to use and abuse. There are studies and theories and numbers and there’s history and psychology and emotion and a gizillion contributing factors. We can't know. Famous people can be miserable, lonely and lost and all the awards, fame and cheers in the world won’t make it okay. I’m not exactly expressing anything new here. It's plretty stupid and meaningless to mourn what might be when we have no idea what might have been.

But put simply, every person who takes the dive because of alcohol or cocaine or burns out their brains on meth or can’t give up whatever is a chance lost. We can't and don’t know how many brilliant scientists, artists, thinkers, doers died young. It’s not the sort of thing I tend to dwell on: it's sort of vague and airy-fairy to talk about potential and wonder if, to babble on about wasted lives and to mourn what could have been and yet. . .

Christopher Bowman was found dead on Thursday. What a fucking waste.

Chris Bowman was a world class elite figure skater. During his skating career, he won the World Junior title, and was a US champion. He had several “Grand Prix” titles and as a senior skater, came in second at Worlds in the late 80s. He trained with three of the finest coaches in figure skating: Frank Carroll (coach of, among others, Michelle Kwan, Nicole Bobek, Linda Fratianne, Evan Lysacek, Tim Goebel), who coached the boy and man for 18 years. He was also taught by John Nicks (Peggy Fleming, Meno and Sand, Babilonia and Gardner, Yamaguchi and Galindo, Natasha Kuchiki, Tiffany Chin and Sasha Cohen) and Toller Cranston. That last guy, a highly creative, controversial and flamboyant skater himself could have done Bowman a world of good. He could have made Bowman a contender, someone who stayed with the sport for more than a few years and who changed it for the good. That's how good Christopher Bowman could have been, had the potential to be. i'm not romanticizing him here. I feel about him as I felt about Rudy Galindo - with the right situation, he was a shooting star. In the age that brought us the bland Todd Eldredge and the artistic genius Paul Wylie, Bowman was off the wall but you couldn’t ignore his talent. He wasn't as good as Boitano, as lyrical as Wylie or Weir, as fabulous as Curry or Cranston, as daring as Ilya Kulik, as strong and daring as Stojko but he mighta. He coulda. I think. He had trouble taking it seriously, granted but it came to him with more ease than it did to other skaters. He didn' stick around long enough for us to really know.

Bowman was a child actor, then a skater for about 10 years, at least that's the range of awards/competitions he was in, but he ended up off the ice, fighting coke addiction. At one time several years ago, I heard him doing commentary for a skating competition. I detest skating commentary (see blog entry for 2/04/05, the one entitled "It's 'Shut up, Dick' Season.". Bowman was the best commentator I ever heard. When someone messed up, he explained, concisely, clearly, logically. He didn’t fill the air with trivia about poor blind mothers, or missed airplanes or sequins or whatever drivel the sports people think we want to know during a performance. He helped explain what was happening and why something was the way it was (the only reason to talk during a performance). I looked for him again after that and never saw him at another competition. Too bad.

As of Saturday, two days after his death, it’s not known whether the guy they called "Bowman the Showman" died due to drugs. He had tried rehab twice, and I remember hearing stories of beatings, confrontations with cops and other shadowy tales. Bowman was a natural, a graceful man on the ice, skilled as all get out, making hard work look easy, moving with his music, not fighting it. His nickname came not from “look at me, look at me” behavior as I describe it (and hate) when it comes from Philippe “put it ON Philllippe” Candeloro, a suck-up at every skating show, or even Scott Hamilton who tries too hard or those doofuses who want you to clap. Bowman just had it, in spades, with ease. It lit up the arena. Even if you didn’t get figure skating you probably would enjoy watching Chris Bowman skate. And yet, he could not shake the addiction or the dark side, whatever you want to call it. As recently as 2005, he was in court dealing with charges involving drunkenness and firearms. Jesus. He had weight problems as well, apparently.

There’s no way, of course, that Chris Bowman could get his life or skating back. His best years were his teens and early twenties. But there was so damn much ability in that guy’s body that he could have had more years, had he wanted them and been able to fight off whatever sent him into cocaine use. It’s so sad that his talents and abilities weren’t enough for him.

I wish tonight that I believed in reincarnation, so I could believe that somewhere out there, a baby's just been born with Chris Bowman's talent and grace and genius. It’s not right that it should be gone from this world so fast. What a waste.

Christopher Bowman was 40 years old when he died.