On October 26th, 2010, one of the world's bright stars faded prematurely, losing his 29 year battle with cancer. Edgar's quick wit, tenacious spirit, and wacky sense of humor will be sorely missed by all of us who knew him and loved him.
Edgar lived his dream as long as he could, designing lighting and stage effects for hundreds of bands & productions during his short career. His website www.StrokeLight.com has photos of just a small fraction of the impressive work he's done over the years. With his last show completed just months ago for Corey Feldman's Band "Truth Movement", Edgar did what he loved most for as long as he could and ultimately "He Danced Til He Dropped".
We will remember Edgar forever, because after all, how could we possibly forget him????
Edgar's obituary and a related story was posted in Lighting and Sound America Online. LSA had done a lengthy feature article on Edgar back in December 2004 highlighting his work and his battle with cancer. Today's story is located at the following link.
http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/news/story.asp?ID=-AYUSYQ
Tributes
Leave a tributeI love you and miss you Edgar!
i still think of you every time i see a stick um and say i need a edger note miss you and Happy birthday you will be remembered
always
Speaking of projects, I found a copy of Gallery, Edgar's film project he shot at Stony Brook, and posted it at http://vimeo.com/168264
Ruthi and Max.
Leave a Tribute
On hearing of Edgar's death
On hearing of Edgar's death
The phone rings
far too late for good news
Dear friend
So long
The time has passed for jokes and jibes
You fought the fight
How long?
Ten? Twenty years?
Eating away at your insides
Tumours the size of grape fruits
That's how you described them
On your spine, on your chest
Riddled throughout your beautiful body.
And no one knew
What to do
For yours was a rare one
Not found in the books
And so you fought
Oh how you fought
For life. To life. Lechaim!
And then the doctors and the experts
And in the end Death itself.
And those who might have known
scratched their heads and just moved on.
A brave fight but in the end
Death has had its way
And the shell that lies before me now
I can never recognise
For it's not you
You were so much more
And now your light is gone,
but not forgotten
Never forgotten.
Oh Edgar where have you gone?
And Beruria, you who have survived it all
From Nazi guns and troublesome son
Now you too must say goodbye.
A pain no mother should ever feel
But for you who gave him all his life
You who gave him all you had
All your love
All your love
And now you're gone, my friend dear friend
My buddy, my fine young man
Buried in the sand of sins
That sand we both called home
You touched us all. And we touched you
We say goodbye today
And see you off on your final trek
We'll meet again one day
Dear friend, farewell. Farewell, dear friend
We'll miss your smile, your face
Without your laugh, your elegance and grace
This world's a sadder place
Good bye, farewell, your time has come
As ours will surely too
Goodnight sweet Edgar. Sweet dreams, dear friend
Long life. Much love. Adieu.
Man of Many Hats
There are so many stories to tell about time spent with Edgar, and I'll come back for others, but the 1st one I want to share is about going to the West Hollywood Halloween parade years back. This is a huge event where they close off a big part of West Hollywood for people to have a street party on Halloween. Everybody goes in the most outlandish costumes they can put together, and any kind of wild behavior is acceptable (any wonder this a favorite event of Edgars?) Anyway, this year I show up at his house where he's been spending the day figuring out his costume, but without settling on anything. Finally, we have a stack of hats from his huge collection of costumes, props etc. he kept hoarded. And he gets the idea to cover himself with hats -- not just on his head (where he put 5) but his whole body. "I'm a man who tries to wear too many hats!!" A great costume -- but far from a disguise!
Stories of Obsession...
Two stories come to mind, amidst the haze of memory, gerry rigged fog machines and burning wires...
We had a reoccurring discussion concerning how to stop his turntables from skipping during the Devastation Dan gigs. Well, I went into one of my lengthy absurd engineering rants about, "in a perfect world, if we had infinite mass attached to the turntable console, and suspended the console on some kind of shock dampening system, we could probably get past most of the problems". I though this was a theoretical discussion ... it wasn't. There we were, Edgar, Dan, myself, (and maybe another member) rebuilding the console to house (Dan, help me on this) a couple of slabs of slate or soapstone from a lab table. This crazy road box console was built and sent on its maiden voyage (rather hastily if I remember correctly). The first time I grabbed hold of that thing with Dan, I remember giggling,.. (No F...W.....!!!) We faithfully loaded that obscene console into that precious van, tires flattening, and made our way to the End of the Bridge. I hate to admit it, but it worked pretty well, but,.. I don't have words to explain what it felt like packing out at the end of that long night.
Edgar came to me and asked if I wanted to be involved in an audio play of sorts, Stripes. Stripes was an epic project, recording the reading of his play and random conversation, and editing the tape into all its separate characters. I said yes, having no idea of the ensuing madness. This was reel to reel tape days. Every line of the play was extracted, cut by razor blade, and bracketed with leader tape on both sides. Hundreds and hundreds of cuts later, knee deep in discarded magnetic tape, we ended up with something. I don't quite know what it was, but Edgar did, that's all that counts. I had never edited that much tape in my life, nor since, but the experience was priceless. That experience pushed, and expanded, the limits of my attention, and my craft.
I'll never forget his nutty, flailing craziness, jumping around the stage, with seemingly endless energy. There was always the next project, the next scheme. It was fun to share the journey for what now seems like such a short time. He taught me a lot, on many levels. His strength and tenacity will be with me, always.
Dude, I'll catch you on the flip side...