What I Couldn't Say, Then

Adapted excerpts from my father's 2022 eulogy. Musical and familial archeology continues apace. Mysteries abound.

Well Dad, I think I've got your story mostly straight. Just a few lingering thoughts.

I wish we could sit out by the harbor again at Old Tony’s, order seafood and a couple stiff martinis, and talk about the remaining mysteries. Archiving and rediscovering your largely unreleased body of work would have been, could have been, a lot of fun to do together. It still seems a stretch that you would have had the patience to go at my pace, but maybe with this mid-life confidence in who I am and how I work, I could have overridden your stubborn ass and kept us on a productive course. Maybe I would have finally broken on through, to You. The lucid, kind, goofy, generous You that I see in all these pictures and videos you had squirreled away on various archaic media for so many years, much of the imagery still so poignant in my memories.

To my younger self, you seemed to take everything so lightly, so in stride. “No big deal” you always said, nothing ever seemed to bother you. But there were things that did bother you, somewhere in the deep. That other You that emerged late like a dramatically slow swamp thing, the You that felt everyone was out to get you, the You that shrank away from vulnerability, the You that continued to poison your own body, the You that I had to watch wither from afar, unable and finally unwilling to intervene, or attempt to save… that You feels very much at peace to me now. I’m honestly happy he’s gone. That You made me angry, confused, tested me, exhausted me… but it taught me too. That You carried something unbearably painful, and was uninterested in ever being hurt, or vulnerable again. I wish I could understand what it was that you had buried. I held on to the hope that we might search for the murky bottom of those things, together. That we might someday laugh and cry about all the absurd complexities of simply being human, even while deep down I knew the chances were slim to none.

Old Tony’s on the pier, one of our last hangs

But then I ask myself, for what purpose? What would, or could I do now with that missing information? Your story is such a good one, if somewhat tragic and unfinished. I could argue that most of ours are, by default, by design. How is a life ever finished? Like any given song, or work of art, we aren’t ever finished, only abandoned. There is a beginning and an end, by organic definition, but viewed with just a slight change in light, or a subtle shift in angle, there can appear to be neither. Only the incessant, illusory flow of time, and the never-ending expansion of the universe. Our body is born and dies, but maybe our soul has been here all along, from the very first bang, and will remain forever and ever simmering in the cosmic soup. Maybe that’s just something our brains conjure to combat the eternal nothingness that comes for us all. We can be forgotten here on earth, as every single living thing eventually will be by the pummeling sands of time…but I like to believe that we can never be truly erased from the master list. We come from, and become, the whole. 

You lived a life worth celebrating. In your own way, for a time, you were the embodiment of an American Dream. Born into the working class, the last grandson of Mediterranean immigrants, the baby of the family, an obstinate surprise. Brought away from the middle, way out west via Route 66 by a savvy and enterprising mother who was tired of the status quo and too-modest midwestern expectations. You both had big things to do. You found your voice amongst these SoCal palms and power lines and craftsman homes and salty air. And what a fine voice it was! You could croon, belt, harmonize, yelp, and scream. For a beautiful moment inside of a singular golden era, you were like a god. All 5’ 7” of you resonated through that microphone, raced through the cable, and blasted out from stacks of speakers. Thousands of amplified watts pushed and carried the unmistakable sound of YOU through the air, indelibly vibrating the inner ear bones of countless souls who had come to feel the salvation and power of 1970’s American rock n roll. There you stood amongst the best, the new kid holding your own, carving your name into the bark of an immortal music tree, pure potential and boundless energy. Smiling and cool all the way. I remain in awe of, and forever impressed by that You.

Unsurprisingly, one of the earliest memories I can recall has to do with music. It’s fuzzy now, as decades old childhood memories tend to be, and surely I’ve imagined and filled in some of the details. I see a big theater, with endless rows of fold-up seats, an aisle lined with red carpet sloped down towards a massive stage. Back then it could only have felt to my scrawny little body like the wild unknown. The vision blurring percussive punch of a kick drum, mic'd and amplified, absolutely pummeling me…chest, stomach, and heart. Utterly brutal, but so intoxicating. It was decades from that moment during some soundcheck of my own that the whole scene—long stored in the dark halls of memory—would rush back in. Surely from the very beginning, before my eyes would open for the first time in this realm, I was somehow imprinted with the spirit of rock n roll. That part of our story, at the very least, is no mystery.

Oftentimes, just being alive can feel like a series of completely random and chaotic events, giving away that maybe just maybe… there really isn’t anyone at the wheel. But over time, these erratic spells are recorded on film, penned to paper, converted into bits and bytes, evaporated into clouds, and radioed around on frequencies to form recognizable groups and familiar patterns. This collective data is now recorded and filed away, used by corporation to enhance(overwhelm) and simplify(complicate) our lives, and of course to keep currency from sitting too long in pockets. I wanted to laugh about all of this with you, Dad. I wanted to commiserate as we wrestled with the ever-accelerating technology advancements. It wasn’t a battle that you often won, but boy you were game for every leap. I’ve got a shed full of dated gadgets to prove it, some of them even in the original, unopened packaging. I remember when you started texting. (All of us do - you had a real way with sending selfies). I want to sift through this mountain of your cassettes together, and listen as you tell me the stories of your songs, describe the scene in the room when you recorded them, who was around, where the ideas came from… you getting worked up recalling band beefs and bashing on the music biz… me quietly laughing and soaking it all up.

You always said you would tell me when I was older. You loved that line.

In the spring of ‘95 I was learning Zeppelin songs in my bedroom on my new (used) black Ibanez SDGR bass that we had picked out together at the Lawndale Guitar Center. Almost immediately I covered it in stickers, a move you shook your head at. Of course now that I’m the same age as you were then, I couldn’t fathom anyone doing that to a perfectly nice instrument. The bass had that sharp infinity blade-like headstock, and I just thought it was the fucking coolest.

With my first band, Upper Hand circa 1997. Ibanez to Hartke to Peavey.

At night I’d crawl into bed, turn off the light, click that Montrose CD with the soft porn Hipgnosis cover design into my Sony Discman player and pop my headphones on, pulling up the covers and getting lost in the music. My own music journey was just beginning. If you could make killer rock music like this and package it in butts in bikinis, well maybe I would too….so many ropes yet to learn. You were my idol, Dad. I wanted to reach you, outrun you, to make you proud. You were our Music Man. You’d sing the road signs, you’d drum the air, whistle those melodies, you’d take what seemed like nothing and make something. I still do so many of the same things.

Another time, another place

So you and I got a bit lost there towards the end. “No big deal”. The losing is as much a part of this life as the finding. Lost and found. Within a too-small sample size, or too stagnant a perspective, it’s impossible to recognize that the Great Balance is ever-present. The good with the bad, the wrong with the right. The yin and the yang, and the pendulum of time. Fair and Unfair. Mistakes and Forgiveness. Live and learn. You get what I’m saying. I don’t believe in regret. What’s done is done, and there are only lessons and course corrections. There just simply isn’t enough time to spend on anything that can’t be changed. 

But I do miss you, Pops. It’s your birthday today, and you would’ve been a fully ripe 71. I’ve spent a lot of time with you and your music since you passed. Probably a lot more than I would have if you were still here, but so it goes. Another quirk of the universe, something to either try and make sense of, or just accept, laugh, and let go. I think you’d be pleased with the progress and the plans being made. Thank you for being you, unabashedly and unflinchingly you. Thank you for every laugh, every lesson, every cheesy card, every hundred, every song, every ribbing, and for your endless unconditional love. I don’t know if I ever told you, but I’m so proud of you. You did good. It’s hard here, I know that now. I’m thankful you helped tap me into this world, even if you and mom didn’t necessarily mean to. I get it, things happen and we deal with it. Rest easy, I love you.