Another person who saved me.
20 years of tools to navigate an insane family and a very cold, harsh world. She made it to the other side. This lyric is so perfect, I can't think of a better tribute. She passed on April 5, 2016. I am somewhat ok with finding out now that she passed. I couldn't cope with this and Prince last year at the same time.
Joan, thank you. We worked in tiny offices together from February 1989 to July 2009. I knew the moment I said goodbye to you in your basement of Park Slope that I'd never see you again. This hurts, but your legacy is having helped so many broken people from crazy families such as mine.
Thank you.
It's Only Love that Gets You Through
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Sunday, August 6, 2017
It all Began in 1985...
Those are the benches where we'd sit and laugh. They've changed a few times in 30+ years. An amazing picture of Sheena and I was taken here, by Chris, in January 1987. We found ourselves drifting over here in the winter to look at the trees covered in ice, swing on the monkey bars (now long gone) and enjoy the wind coming off the water. We loved winter and snow. One of the funniest pictures of Chris was him flinging a snowball at a girl named Sherrie, who looked eerily like me. Jr. showed it to me in November 1995, the last time I saw him, ever. It really hurts to write that.
We were born 4.5 blocks from each other, and now I realize we were basically 5 hrs away from each other in a different state. Pisces always swim in schools, clustered, even if we dart off in different directions.
These past 3 weeks have been hell on me. I don't know what made me look after so many years. I honestly believed he was out there, married with kids, most likely to someone who reminded him of me. That used to be his modus operandi. He once told me the sequel is never as good as the original. I didn't understand that at the time. There was no joy in realizing that I was his first love, a prototype of sorts, when he wasn't mine. Oh, how easy that would have been. I can never truly explain, nor understand, the forces that conspired to keep us apart.
Strange phone calls and pranks happened when we tried to get close in 1987, 2 yrs after we'd first met. Someone's garage was set on fire. Tires were slashed. A NYPD detective called me and grilled me about this. People would call my house at 4 in the morning and just leave the phone there. The way landlines worked, the other party would have to hang up, or your phone was pretty much useless. This happened and I don't know who it was. It certainly wasn't anyone in my Bay Ridge bunch. I had gotten sick of them after the 2 bitchy girls with dark hair jumped me near 67th street. I was pretty spooked by then. My mother pretty much laid down the law and it was no marathon phone calls from this boy anymore. Which is hilarious, because she later admitted Chris was her "favorite", which makes no sense to me. I suspect it was Frank and Charlene doing this, I don't think he wanted Chris to be happy in any way. Amazing what a little jealousy can turn you into. There was also Phil and Anthony or Antoine? God, I don't remember. He kept me away from all of them. He was very protective of things he loved. Books, magazines, musical instruments and people. It took me years to see this, and I still don't understand it.
After May 1987, there were no phone calls. I took a detour on the night I met someone I truly adored, on August 14, 1987. The party I was at was on Bay 22nd St, exactly the opposite side of houses connected to 19th Avenue. I walked past the house and screamed, "Hey, Chris!" It had to be 2 am. He flung the door open and said nothing. I knew he was up, though. We were always nite owls. He found the courage to start calling me in September 1987, just a month later. The garage and all the detective stuff had died down. But the feeling was lost. He had a new girlfriend a few months later, and I was wrapped up in serious academics that being my Junior year. SATs were eating me alive and I never even got a decent score. My parent's marriage was at its breaking point and my father's crew of drinking and gambling buddies were starting to die off, one by one. He ended up in rehab himself at the beginning of January 1989. That's how tough 1988 was. It damn near killed me, too.
Nothing will recapture that feeling of 1987, the phone calls, the music, and knowing the possibilities were endless. I miss the snow, the spring, the pizza shop near Caesar's Bay and the laughs. That's being a teenager, I guess. And knowing someone loved me. I couldn't tell back then. I didn't do "hints" very well. I still don't. That's the nature of INTJ. We are direct, in-your-face, and want immediate communication. I didn't figure out half the things he told me until I was about 30, honestly.
Chris saw the world very specifically, giving roles to things that should have worked out or behaved the way he wanted. This never happens, and the roles we ascribe to people and things destroy expectations, which in turn, causes disappointment and anger. He could be the rageaholic at times, and I think this was the root of this. Underneath it all, I just don't think he had too many smart people around him. They were average. They wanted to fit in, they were there, but sometimes, he just didn't want to be alone. He'd never admit this, but I knew it was true. Pisces like to experience and experiment things, not necessarily drugs and drink (we are constantly accused of this), but people. Just to see what happens. A nugget of truth. A bit of "what if" that only another person can provide.
These memories are coming at me, disjointed and pelting me like hail. I just have to go slow and get it all out. If ever I needed a reason to start blogging again, well, this is a pretty good reason.
Random memory: a giant waterbug came out from under the dryer last night. I thought of Charlie, the waterbug in the old garage. He'd fly across the floor and Chris sat down and starting riffing on his guitar. He called it Charlie's Song. I don't know if Charlie got away, but these are the very funny things he did. It's why I miss him, and always will. This paying-bills and grown-up business is very hard sometimes. I have lived in service of debt, bills, loans and rent. I forgot how to have fun so many years ago, sadly, it has become a memory. I wish I could turn my brain off sometimes, but that's not how I work. Even back then, I could feel the pressure to go faster, run run run run...ugh, how exhausting. It never stopped. Fibromyalgia was my body's way of saying, "Fuck everyone, you need a rest." And it pisses people off, too! I'm not using time or speed as an excuse. I'm burying friends now. I've been to 3x the amount of funerals and memorials than I ever did weddings, and now I've hit the age where those weddings are turning into divorces.
Such is life.
More to come...my brain is spilling out. If no one really knew this guy, well, I did. I'm putting it all here.
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Songs We Loved
Another bunch of lyrics Chris & I pored over. The writing doesn't seem to be working, I'm going back to songs...just like we always did.
You're Made That Way
You're Made That Way
Thursday, August 3, 2017
"This Makes Me Think of You."
There's nothing else, but the music. It's how we communicated, bonded and understood each other. And the most she will do, is throw shadows at you...
I Got In there Somehow
I Got In there Somehow
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Hungry Hearts
I think this might be him. Animal 37? Tasmanian Devil, always playing football.
Goddamn, I miss your voice. I'm going to take this slow. This hurts more than I expected.
And to all the imitators who wasted my time? You'll never be this guy. Flawed and funny, quick, sexy, maybe a little destructive. I understood him and he understood me.
I can't fix this. I can't fix me, either. No one can. But this guy came close.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Randy Paul 1951-2016
Well, it started with a fight from a guy Randy used to call "Noodles." Totally not quite there, mentally. Personality disorder, but also mentally unfit. Obsessed with wrestling, metal and not many friends. I used to see him in the 80s in L'amour and was disturbed by his intensity. Oddball. Not approachable. Scary hollowed-eyed look from someone with some type of disorder.
It was 2003. I had gotten rid of all the people associated with my first major narcissist, after he'd put up a nasty website about me and tried to send the link to my boss at the time. His sycophant friends were still in Brooklyn, as I was, while he moved out to CT with his doctor boyfriend. One of them told me to get the story of Noodles from Randy, and she warned me, "Randy was an old promoter in rock clubs. He's also a bit of a drunk." Ok, I've dealt with plenty of those in my life. No problem!
I called the number Randy sent me on an email. Apparently, he thought I was Noodles trying to attack him again. I told him to look up the string code of IP addresses. They'd be different. One email I'd sent from my desk at work, the other at home, on my Mac computer. Totally different. I called him and we talked. Noodles had attacked and spammed my earthlink account. Randy told me how he tried to befriend him and how his yahoo and webtv account were now flooded, also with legal and physical threats. This guy was clearly bad news. He also gave me some emails with some fairly famous people marked in, one of them being Eddie Trunk, who Noodles wanted to be so badly. From there, a friendship began upon our mutual hatred of Noodles. But we also had music, food and cats in common.
Throughout 2004, it was mostly phone calls, but I think sometime in 2005 or 2006, we met. I was still at the AP at this time, and was desperately trying to get the hell outta that job. He followed my blog at this time, too. And how weird it all was.
The funny things about Randy? He was a collector of what he called "stupid shit." DVDs, old Kiss items, random cds and promo records, tshirts, rock books, toys, lights, gag gifts and anything kitschy from the late 70s and early 80s. He stopped going to L'amour around the time I had started, which was roughly 1987. Metal was now in its popular phase. He decided to stay in NJ, and became the head booker at Escapades, a place I'd heard of, but had never been in. He was also a fan of marathon phone calls, not uncommon from people from NJ, since I couldn't get out to see them often. RD was one of them for a while, but that's a different story.
Randy had a bit of a stutter, and had lost a tooth. I asked him if he had fun pushing mashed potatoes out of the "hole." He laughed for a long time. "Taters? Ah, taters! I resemble that remark." Every convo was filled with jokes, laughs, and bad puns in those early years.
He warned me about the dark side of Noodles and that he regularly scrubbed the internet for mentions of his name. This is why I'm using the nickname he hated as a kid. He won't attack me if I put this up. Alex Kayne, a mutual friend of ours, helped me block him in a few rock pages on Facebook just to be safe. Even he knew Noodles wasn't exactly all there, mentally.
Halloween and Christmas were our favorites. Costumes, toys, pumpkins, lights, decorations. I jumped into blogging and technology waaaay before Randy did, and thought I was hesitant to get on facebook or myspace at the time, I told Randy about them. Eventually, he bit the bullet, and got an affordable laptop. He'd been going to the library to send me emails, just as RD did, for a few years. Randy had been one of the first people to start a fanzine for Kiss, and he is mentioned in Gene Simmon's & Paul Stanley's book about their early years of the band. I always loved Rock & Roll Over, which my cousin played continuously when I was a toddler.
With the new laptop sitting on his kitchen table, we really had fun. In 2005, facebook started letting in any non-college kid and youtube came about. People started uploading videos from the 80s, and Randy was very excited. "My people! I gotta find them all." TTYL was his special signature on every email, which I came to learn meant "Talk To You Later." It was always later...some of his emails started ending up in my spam, there were so many of them. He wanted people around him, was very extroverted, and didn't have my crazy, demanding news and contract flow at my job. Randy took a warehouse security position near his apartment, to supplement what was the beginning of his social security money. I never could take a day off, and my health started to suffer. Fibromyalgia is no joke. In 2007, when His Name We Abuse fired a bunch of us, I finally had the time off I needed to actually see him on a regular basis. There was nothing out in Bayonne to do, so he'd come to Brooklyn or we'd walk around NYC. Trips to Peggy's in Coney Island, L&B Spumoni gardens, and one birthday trip to the now-defunct Casa Calamari on 18th Avenue stick in my memory. Randy's birthday was December 23, though many people believed it was the 22nd. Turns out, he liked to party on the 22nd and stay in bed hung over (!) on the 23rd. Then, it was Christmas, a few days of after-holiday shopping for deals, then New Years to wrap it up. My god, he could really party. He was in his 50s when I met him, but had the heart of a teenager. It didn't surprise me when I found out most of his friends were 15 to 20 years YOUNGER than him! They had to be, just to keep up!
His past remained sketchy. He didn't like to talk about his parents, though he loved his mother. His father either left them or died early. I never got that straight. His brother was a jerk, and they stopped speaking. At some point, I figured out they had all died, including his first wife, whom he married at age 20 or 21 and divorced 11 years later. She was money hungry, wanted him to get a normal life and a normal job and give up the cash-only nature of club promoting. Randy had plenty to spend and plenty to go around, with just enough for the IRS to stay off his back. This proved disastrous at the end of his life, since his savings were non-existent. His blood pressure was off the charts, absolutely sky-high, and this caused 3 major hospitalizations. The last one was exactly 1 year before his death, September 13, 2015. He was on facebook regularly at that point, thanks to some books I'd given him to understand its capacity. He was able to connect with over 1100 friends and associates he knew over the years, including many bands he helped. They were happy to hear from him, but his body was not young anymore. These people had kids, marriages, and some I assume, had stopped the partying. He did not. "I'm a functional alcoholic," he'd say. I nodded, but knew better.
When my eviction took place, I found it even more difficult to stay connected. The adjustment to the weather, the heat and humidity, and constant demands he placed on me with phones and emails turned out to be our undoing in terms of the friendship. I understood his need to stay connected, and suspected he was very lonely at that point, but I could not give him 3-6 hours a day 5 times a week of my time. I was exhausted, had just lost 90% of what I owned, all my money, most of my possessions, and just wanted to rest. My introversion kicked in big time, and he took this as a rejection. I was depressed, in pain mentally and physically, and simply couldn't keep up. His paranoia showed up in strange ways, as well. 3 am drink-and-dial phone calls accusing me of being "in league" with Noodles, that I was simply making fun of him, and that Noodles put me up to the entire friendship. He wanted me to live and think they way he did, and that was impossible. His insecurity and anger came out, lashing out at me, and one final incident broke us apart.
I had visited a friend in Staten Island, and he mentioned a movie about Valentine's Day. At the time, there were 2 movies about this subject, which seemed harmless and slightly silly to me. Randy loved minutiae, and I just didn't care at this point. I got one wrong. I mentioned the other movie. Again, a 3 am phone call. Why am I making things up? Why do I create such "stories"? Why hadn't I helped him find his father? Why hadn't I helped him sell more items before my eviction? (He had contributed 7 boxes of vinyl, added to my own to sell in the hopes of paying my lawyer to stave off the eviction. It didn't work. His records weren't worth more than 75 cents each, and I barely got $200 for the entire thing. He over-estimated its worth, a typical problem with those that hoard.) Working 3 jobs in 2008, right after the housing crash, was more than I could bear. Neither my finances, nor my mother's, were enough to save me. He was pissed at having "lost" all those records, even though they were scratched, old, and basically useless. A common trait among hoarders, and alcoholics, I learned: they attribute worth and perceived value unto items based on memory and sentiment, not actual math. I simply didn't know how to deal with this, and pulled away. He would scream at me on my voice mail, and then later apologize. This is behavior I went through with my father, and it was very triggering for me. In 2011, he promised to take me out for my birthday, then cancelled at the last minute. I'd be in NY and was about to turn 39. He didn't know how many birthdays I'd had ruined by my own father, or he wouldn't have asked. I was pissed. That was it. We could've met up, gotten a taxi or stayed in the same place. He assumed I'd want to walk long distances like we'd used to. With my back and my legs on fire, that wasn't happening. He basically assumed I'd do everything I would not. He also didn't have the courage to tell that his feet hurt from his security job, sitting at a desk, then making the rounds for hours at a time, at the old warehouse. The lack of direct communication drove me up the wall. I let it go and stopped answering his calls. One final Christmas card was flat and bland. In 2012, I had my cancer scare. He called to ask how I was. Blah blah went the phone call. I was not confiding in someone who I'd knew would attack me later. I was fed up.
Our last phone call was New Year's Eve right before 2013. I took the call, texted a few people, and basically went to bed. FL was mind-numbingly "same" year after year, day after day. The friendship had reached its limit. He had screamed at me that this was what was happening back in 2011. (He was right, and I can finally admit that.) I'll stick to facebook, I told myself. And that's as far as we went.
My iPhone finally died in early 2014, having been dropped so many times. The speaker and screen (though not cracked) flickered in and out. I got a new number, and decided not to give it to anyone. I no longer welcome phone calls like I once did. I am now all about social media: facebook (thought it gets on my nerves), twitter (only a few have my address), instagram, youtube. If you have my old email? Congrats. I barely look at it 5 times a month. I used to be on it hours each day. I no longer care.
Birthdays would pop up, although I don't really go thru all the people that send me wishes on that day. I've never liked my birthday very much: too many disappointments and too many bad memories.
I woke up on the morning of July 11 and decided, out of the blue, to look at Randy's profile. I scrolled down and saw that all of the entries stopped on December 24th. Then, one stated, "Happy Birthday in heaven! We miss you!" My heart dropped. I couldn't feel my throat or my face. I felt cold and shocked. I kept scrolling. Randy died of a stroke, in his sleep, on September 13, 2016. His friends did what they could to pay for the funeral expenses, but sadly, the contents of his entire apartment were tossed into the street, by his landlord. I was able to click around a few profiles -- none of his friends seem to have high privacy settings at all -- and put the story together. I managed to contact 1 of them thru google+, but that was it. I managed to find where he was buried. The woman on the phone also asked if I was going to help contribute to get him a headstone. I'd owed him money in small amounts that he'd let go, perhaps I should, if I can one day, pony up and get Randy an actual headstone. No family, only friends. The contents of his life tossed like garbage. This is what happens. All cash, all parties, all superficial. Perhaps this is why he wanted to cling? He wanted substance in his life. I don't know how I was supposed to provide this 1000 miles away in FL, but I guess we all want that 1 person who looks and feels safe. I never found that person, either, Randy. I'm sorry.
My favorite memory of us together will be June 2010. He met me near 20th avenue in Bensonhurst, right near the D train, 1 of my favorite spots in my old neighborhood. He was standing near a mailbox and we decided to walk all that distance to L&B Spumoni gardens before another walk down Stillwell avenue to Peggy O'Neills. A Guns & Roses tribute band were playing and we decided to have some fun. I got back to my friend's house in Staten Island around 6 in the morning. He bought me a Warriors hoodie jacket, which was stolen when my mother decided to wear it out 1 night a few years later. We went thru the shops, the grounds, and he told me about his childhood in Coney Island. He knew 1 of the last families that lived under the original Thunderbolt, but memories are a slippery thing: he couldn't find the block nor the house where he'd lived in the mid-60s as a teen. Thor Equities ripped it all up and had now gentrified it beyond belief. I didn't recognize most of it, and neither did he. It was a fun night, though. He got home and so did I. The last time I ever did something like that and also the last time I ever saw him in person. Music, drinks, laughs, fun. My life is not like that anymore. I guess I can remember him that way. He wanted to keep the party going. Parties aren't meant to last. No one knows that better than me, Randy.
2016 took some really colorful people. Of course Randy would pass in the year of losing so many musicians. It almost makes sense.
Randy was 64. I hope he's hanging out with Lemmy, having beers and talking about tshirt designs. I have his Christmas and Halloween cards. I also have a collectors DVD of The Dark Crystal, a movie we both loved. Circles are tiny, they go around, and then they close. I will visit the grave later this year...
Randy's Headstone Fund
It was 2003. I had gotten rid of all the people associated with my first major narcissist, after he'd put up a nasty website about me and tried to send the link to my boss at the time. His sycophant friends were still in Brooklyn, as I was, while he moved out to CT with his doctor boyfriend. One of them told me to get the story of Noodles from Randy, and she warned me, "Randy was an old promoter in rock clubs. He's also a bit of a drunk." Ok, I've dealt with plenty of those in my life. No problem!
I called the number Randy sent me on an email. Apparently, he thought I was Noodles trying to attack him again. I told him to look up the string code of IP addresses. They'd be different. One email I'd sent from my desk at work, the other at home, on my Mac computer. Totally different. I called him and we talked. Noodles had attacked and spammed my earthlink account. Randy told me how he tried to befriend him and how his yahoo and webtv account were now flooded, also with legal and physical threats. This guy was clearly bad news. He also gave me some emails with some fairly famous people marked in, one of them being Eddie Trunk, who Noodles wanted to be so badly. From there, a friendship began upon our mutual hatred of Noodles. But we also had music, food and cats in common.
Throughout 2004, it was mostly phone calls, but I think sometime in 2005 or 2006, we met. I was still at the AP at this time, and was desperately trying to get the hell outta that job. He followed my blog at this time, too. And how weird it all was.
The funny things about Randy? He was a collector of what he called "stupid shit." DVDs, old Kiss items, random cds and promo records, tshirts, rock books, toys, lights, gag gifts and anything kitschy from the late 70s and early 80s. He stopped going to L'amour around the time I had started, which was roughly 1987. Metal was now in its popular phase. He decided to stay in NJ, and became the head booker at Escapades, a place I'd heard of, but had never been in. He was also a fan of marathon phone calls, not uncommon from people from NJ, since I couldn't get out to see them often. RD was one of them for a while, but that's a different story.
Randy had a bit of a stutter, and had lost a tooth. I asked him if he had fun pushing mashed potatoes out of the "hole." He laughed for a long time. "Taters? Ah, taters! I resemble that remark." Every convo was filled with jokes, laughs, and bad puns in those early years.
He warned me about the dark side of Noodles and that he regularly scrubbed the internet for mentions of his name. This is why I'm using the nickname he hated as a kid. He won't attack me if I put this up. Alex Kayne, a mutual friend of ours, helped me block him in a few rock pages on Facebook just to be safe. Even he knew Noodles wasn't exactly all there, mentally.
Halloween and Christmas were our favorites. Costumes, toys, pumpkins, lights, decorations. I jumped into blogging and technology waaaay before Randy did, and thought I was hesitant to get on facebook or myspace at the time, I told Randy about them. Eventually, he bit the bullet, and got an affordable laptop. He'd been going to the library to send me emails, just as RD did, for a few years. Randy had been one of the first people to start a fanzine for Kiss, and he is mentioned in Gene Simmon's & Paul Stanley's book about their early years of the band. I always loved Rock & Roll Over, which my cousin played continuously when I was a toddler.
With the new laptop sitting on his kitchen table, we really had fun. In 2005, facebook started letting in any non-college kid and youtube came about. People started uploading videos from the 80s, and Randy was very excited. "My people! I gotta find them all." TTYL was his special signature on every email, which I came to learn meant "Talk To You Later." It was always later...some of his emails started ending up in my spam, there were so many of them. He wanted people around him, was very extroverted, and didn't have my crazy, demanding news and contract flow at my job. Randy took a warehouse security position near his apartment, to supplement what was the beginning of his social security money. I never could take a day off, and my health started to suffer. Fibromyalgia is no joke. In 2007, when His Name We Abuse fired a bunch of us, I finally had the time off I needed to actually see him on a regular basis. There was nothing out in Bayonne to do, so he'd come to Brooklyn or we'd walk around NYC. Trips to Peggy's in Coney Island, L&B Spumoni gardens, and one birthday trip to the now-defunct Casa Calamari on 18th Avenue stick in my memory. Randy's birthday was December 23, though many people believed it was the 22nd. Turns out, he liked to party on the 22nd and stay in bed hung over (!) on the 23rd. Then, it was Christmas, a few days of after-holiday shopping for deals, then New Years to wrap it up. My god, he could really party. He was in his 50s when I met him, but had the heart of a teenager. It didn't surprise me when I found out most of his friends were 15 to 20 years YOUNGER than him! They had to be, just to keep up!
His past remained sketchy. He didn't like to talk about his parents, though he loved his mother. His father either left them or died early. I never got that straight. His brother was a jerk, and they stopped speaking. At some point, I figured out they had all died, including his first wife, whom he married at age 20 or 21 and divorced 11 years later. She was money hungry, wanted him to get a normal life and a normal job and give up the cash-only nature of club promoting. Randy had plenty to spend and plenty to go around, with just enough for the IRS to stay off his back. This proved disastrous at the end of his life, since his savings were non-existent. His blood pressure was off the charts, absolutely sky-high, and this caused 3 major hospitalizations. The last one was exactly 1 year before his death, September 13, 2015. He was on facebook regularly at that point, thanks to some books I'd given him to understand its capacity. He was able to connect with over 1100 friends and associates he knew over the years, including many bands he helped. They were happy to hear from him, but his body was not young anymore. These people had kids, marriages, and some I assume, had stopped the partying. He did not. "I'm a functional alcoholic," he'd say. I nodded, but knew better.
When my eviction took place, I found it even more difficult to stay connected. The adjustment to the weather, the heat and humidity, and constant demands he placed on me with phones and emails turned out to be our undoing in terms of the friendship. I understood his need to stay connected, and suspected he was very lonely at that point, but I could not give him 3-6 hours a day 5 times a week of my time. I was exhausted, had just lost 90% of what I owned, all my money, most of my possessions, and just wanted to rest. My introversion kicked in big time, and he took this as a rejection. I was depressed, in pain mentally and physically, and simply couldn't keep up. His paranoia showed up in strange ways, as well. 3 am drink-and-dial phone calls accusing me of being "in league" with Noodles, that I was simply making fun of him, and that Noodles put me up to the entire friendship. He wanted me to live and think they way he did, and that was impossible. His insecurity and anger came out, lashing out at me, and one final incident broke us apart.
I had visited a friend in Staten Island, and he mentioned a movie about Valentine's Day. At the time, there were 2 movies about this subject, which seemed harmless and slightly silly to me. Randy loved minutiae, and I just didn't care at this point. I got one wrong. I mentioned the other movie. Again, a 3 am phone call. Why am I making things up? Why do I create such "stories"? Why hadn't I helped him find his father? Why hadn't I helped him sell more items before my eviction? (He had contributed 7 boxes of vinyl, added to my own to sell in the hopes of paying my lawyer to stave off the eviction. It didn't work. His records weren't worth more than 75 cents each, and I barely got $200 for the entire thing. He over-estimated its worth, a typical problem with those that hoard.) Working 3 jobs in 2008, right after the housing crash, was more than I could bear. Neither my finances, nor my mother's, were enough to save me. He was pissed at having "lost" all those records, even though they were scratched, old, and basically useless. A common trait among hoarders, and alcoholics, I learned: they attribute worth and perceived value unto items based on memory and sentiment, not actual math. I simply didn't know how to deal with this, and pulled away. He would scream at me on my voice mail, and then later apologize. This is behavior I went through with my father, and it was very triggering for me. In 2011, he promised to take me out for my birthday, then cancelled at the last minute. I'd be in NY and was about to turn 39. He didn't know how many birthdays I'd had ruined by my own father, or he wouldn't have asked. I was pissed. That was it. We could've met up, gotten a taxi or stayed in the same place. He assumed I'd want to walk long distances like we'd used to. With my back and my legs on fire, that wasn't happening. He basically assumed I'd do everything I would not. He also didn't have the courage to tell that his feet hurt from his security job, sitting at a desk, then making the rounds for hours at a time, at the old warehouse. The lack of direct communication drove me up the wall. I let it go and stopped answering his calls. One final Christmas card was flat and bland. In 2012, I had my cancer scare. He called to ask how I was. Blah blah went the phone call. I was not confiding in someone who I'd knew would attack me later. I was fed up.
Our last phone call was New Year's Eve right before 2013. I took the call, texted a few people, and basically went to bed. FL was mind-numbingly "same" year after year, day after day. The friendship had reached its limit. He had screamed at me that this was what was happening back in 2011. (He was right, and I can finally admit that.) I'll stick to facebook, I told myself. And that's as far as we went.
My iPhone finally died in early 2014, having been dropped so many times. The speaker and screen (though not cracked) flickered in and out. I got a new number, and decided not to give it to anyone. I no longer welcome phone calls like I once did. I am now all about social media: facebook (thought it gets on my nerves), twitter (only a few have my address), instagram, youtube. If you have my old email? Congrats. I barely look at it 5 times a month. I used to be on it hours each day. I no longer care.
Birthdays would pop up, although I don't really go thru all the people that send me wishes on that day. I've never liked my birthday very much: too many disappointments and too many bad memories.
I woke up on the morning of July 11 and decided, out of the blue, to look at Randy's profile. I scrolled down and saw that all of the entries stopped on December 24th. Then, one stated, "Happy Birthday in heaven! We miss you!" My heart dropped. I couldn't feel my throat or my face. I felt cold and shocked. I kept scrolling. Randy died of a stroke, in his sleep, on September 13, 2016. His friends did what they could to pay for the funeral expenses, but sadly, the contents of his entire apartment were tossed into the street, by his landlord. I was able to click around a few profiles -- none of his friends seem to have high privacy settings at all -- and put the story together. I managed to contact 1 of them thru google+, but that was it. I managed to find where he was buried. The woman on the phone also asked if I was going to help contribute to get him a headstone. I'd owed him money in small amounts that he'd let go, perhaps I should, if I can one day, pony up and get Randy an actual headstone. No family, only friends. The contents of his life tossed like garbage. This is what happens. All cash, all parties, all superficial. Perhaps this is why he wanted to cling? He wanted substance in his life. I don't know how I was supposed to provide this 1000 miles away in FL, but I guess we all want that 1 person who looks and feels safe. I never found that person, either, Randy. I'm sorry.
My favorite memory of us together will be June 2010. He met me near 20th avenue in Bensonhurst, right near the D train, 1 of my favorite spots in my old neighborhood. He was standing near a mailbox and we decided to walk all that distance to L&B Spumoni gardens before another walk down Stillwell avenue to Peggy O'Neills. A Guns & Roses tribute band were playing and we decided to have some fun. I got back to my friend's house in Staten Island around 6 in the morning. He bought me a Warriors hoodie jacket, which was stolen when my mother decided to wear it out 1 night a few years later. We went thru the shops, the grounds, and he told me about his childhood in Coney Island. He knew 1 of the last families that lived under the original Thunderbolt, but memories are a slippery thing: he couldn't find the block nor the house where he'd lived in the mid-60s as a teen. Thor Equities ripped it all up and had now gentrified it beyond belief. I didn't recognize most of it, and neither did he. It was a fun night, though. He got home and so did I. The last time I ever did something like that and also the last time I ever saw him in person. Music, drinks, laughs, fun. My life is not like that anymore. I guess I can remember him that way. He wanted to keep the party going. Parties aren't meant to last. No one knows that better than me, Randy.
2016 took some really colorful people. Of course Randy would pass in the year of losing so many musicians. It almost makes sense.
Randy was 64. I hope he's hanging out with Lemmy, having beers and talking about tshirt designs. I have his Christmas and Halloween cards. I also have a collectors DVD of The Dark Crystal, a movie we both loved. Circles are tiny, they go around, and then they close. I will visit the grave later this year...
Randy's Headstone Fund
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Two Weeks, and I'm Processing...
Death keeps following me. Can't really avoid it, but I'm ready. Made some funny notes about Randy. I will put them up in the next few days.
Chris will go up in chapters, year by year. He deserves that much. I will also be making a donation to the John Ritter Foundation, since he also died way too soon from aortic dissection. It's the the least I can do.
Many tears, many thoughts, many feelings. I'm ready as I'll ever be.
Which doesn't feel like much...
Chris will go up in chapters, year by year. He deserves that much. I will also be making a donation to the John Ritter Foundation, since he also died way too soon from aortic dissection. It's the the least I can do.
Many tears, many thoughts, many feelings. I'm ready as I'll ever be.
Which doesn't feel like much...
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