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.

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! 

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...