I was in the middle of reading about the fascinating people profiled in the annual Lives They Lived issue of the New York Times Magazine when I heard shocking news about the passing of another fascinating person. One that I knew, actually: Brad Graham of Bradlands.com. It appears that he died in his sleep of natural causes on December 31st, at the young age of 41. Yeah, I don’t believe it, either.
Brad was one of the earliest bloggers I knew of, and pretty much the kingpin of the (small) community of gay bloggers around in the early ’00s. Back then it was such a thrill to be writing on the net, and having someone else noticing what you were doing was an even bigger thrill — especially when that someone was as friendly and witty as Brad. His August 3, 2001 post, using the first Scrubbles redesign to explore childhood fear of Dow Scrubbing Bubbles, was typical Brad. We weren’t close friends or anything, but his warmth and humor was something I treasured over the years (we even briefly bonded over the ’70s kiddie-com Big John, Little John on twitter last year). I’ll miss you, Brad.