RIP: Jeffery Wonderfull
Original Dandys superstar, avant-garde artist, and our dear friend Jeffery Wonderful has left Earth. Jeffery was a mainstay in our early days, appearing in music videos and coming with us on tour to do sixties style projections.
But Jeffery was much more than that, though. He touched many during his brief stay among us animals, and our thoughts go out to his family and all his friends worldwide. Godspeed. Personal thoughts to follow.
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When I first starting running around downtown Portland as a 15yr old, around 1990, I met a cute boy that went by Jeffrey Wonderful. He said if I mailed him a love letter he would return one and include a “plethora” of stickers. I followed through and so did he. I learned a new word that day and made a new friend. The first friend I ever made in Portland. Several years before joining The Dandys. This boy ended up starring in our first video, became our first psychedelic lighting guy by swirling oils, food dye and water in a pyrex dish on an overhead projector and was a ton of fun on tour with us in the early days. He was one of a kind and will be deeply missed.
ZIA MCCABE
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Jeffery Wonderful was an amazing spirit. His sense of humor and positive energy encapsulated Portland’s X-Ray Cafe scene of which we were a part. We cast him in two videos (“TV Theme Song” and “Little Drummer Boy”) and brought him on tour to do oil and water projections. Later on with his construction company he worked on projects at The Odditorium and my house. He did all the finishing work in my bedroom. Jeffery will be missed.
PETER G. HOLMSTRÖM
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I don’t recall meeting Jeffrey for the first time. A few years ago he had bowed out of managing the Rose City Rollers and was putting on avant-garde theatre in town.
We took Sheppard Fairey and his wife to see Jeffrey’s production of Hot Gun which was of course a gender bender redux of Top Gun, which is still a movie I’ve not seen.
Well it was amazing and we were in hysterics for two hours. We were chatting with Jeffrey afterwards and I mentioned that his other play was also ultra queer and funny as fuck and how did he do this adaptation and know when to stop rewriting and let it be funny.
He said he didn’t have to change a word of it.
COURTNEY TAYLOR TAYLOR
