Gary Skupa
(1946 - 2016)
He lived life with zest and in doing so, reached an ever-enlarging circle of loving friends. Gary’s appreciation of all genres of music was well known. He was a supporter, board member, and constant presence at the Ashkenaz Center in Berkeley, where he embraced the eclectic sounds of multiple musical traditions.
He gave all the time in the world for the San Pablo Avenue venue, even if he had no sense of time.
Then they’d wait. Skupa, friends fondly remember, lived by his own clock, dubbed “The Gary Skupa Greenwich Meridian Mean Time appointment system” in a 1991 poem by Bob Randolph.
Despite being “temporally impaired,” as friend Bill Rathbun put it, the 70-year-old Skupa was a fixture at Ashkenaz over the years after meeting owner David Nadel.
At the time of his death, Skupa was the secretary of the Ashkenaz board, its unofficial proofreader, and an instrumental grant writer for the venue’s renovation projects.
As part of an Army family, Skupa lived in postwar France in the 1950s, and grew up in Colorado Springs, attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. After graduation, he relocated in the early 1970s to Berkeley, making it his home for the next four decades.
He was known as a night owl who lived frugally, and took to various political causes as a “traditional Berkeley liberal radical,” Rathbun said.
Friends said he liked to keep his hair long and disliked having his picture taken.
At Ashkenaz, he found a constant supply of music, and camaraderie, spending days and nights there.
“He had a terrific memory, loved all kinds of music, and was a walking encyclopedia of all the current, especially West Coast and world beat, music,” Rathbun said.
“He kept us grounded and true to our history and our roots over here,” Earl said.
A Colorado native, Gary came out to California in his twenties, during his college years in the 1970s, where he fell in love with Berkeley and stayed. Gary was a humble man with little material ties, but if one counted love and friendships, then you would say Gary was a man of great wealth.
Gary loved music; he was a virtual walking encyclopedia of the musical genres around the Bay Area and the world. Gary leaves behind an incredible legacy with his dedication and the work he has done to keep Ashkenaz moving forward.
Throughout the years, Gary’s reputation as a “man of many parts” grew. He possessed a fantastic memory and boundless enthusiasm for all branches of knowledge. As his friends recognized, Gary never confined himself to a “rigid” time schedule. If he was somewhat challenged by the notion of absolute punctuality, it was because he had discovered a fascinating article in a magazine or had been drawn into a riveting discussion with a friend and, therefore, arrived late to an appointed rendezvous.
“If there was an emergency, we’d call Gary”