Summer Means Fun

Memorial Day weekend is always special to me for a number of reasons. First, it signifies the kick-off for goofing-off: the end of school, the beginning of summer (regardless of what the thermometer sez), the official opening of the beaches. Second, and maybe more important to me, it always lands within a few days of my birthday. Oh yeah, also my youngest daughter's wedding anniversary hits at the same time now.

But let's get back to the birthday thing. On my 17th birthday my mother's birthday present to me was a microphone. Not MR Microphone, but a real honest-to-goodness microphone that you could scream words of teenage angst into, set to the ear-splitting feedback of a garage band's blues-based wail. It was sleek and gun-metal grey, just like my mind.

This was my first mic, but my 2nd garage band, which was first called Haldog, then Zip, then Flash. The man standing slightly behind me and a bit to my left, strumming the shit out of his blonde faux-Fender was my best friend Tom. Two years earlier he supplied the mic for my first gig as vocalist with The West Central Eggzit (It was my idea to spell it like that - I was 15, whaddaya want?). The mic was boxy and quite retro looking which would've been cool in time but by 1968 standards just seemed old fashioned. BUT it was a mic, and it worked, and I would've used tin cans with string if I had to. I was on stage & I was smeared with day-glo paint. Action painting!! Take that, Jackson Pollack!

Tom was in some ways the polar opposite of me. He didn't care how high the heels of my boots were or really any ephemeral shit. He just wanted to play, and in the end, yes, that's all that matters (but high-heeled boots to a 17 year old wannabe rock star are fantastic).

Throughout life he was like that. He cut through my bullshit all the time, and that's what I miss most about him . He's been gone for two years now, and sometimes it seems like I crawl up my own ass without him there to normalize whatever crap I'm blathering on about. When you've known someone for 40 years like I did Tom, and that person has merged with the universe, you really have no time or patience to "break in" someone new, someone who "gets" you. By that time, I'll be surfing my own cosmic wave.

So as another school year winds down and the summer sun brings vacation season into full bloom, I hoist a Guinness and a microphone high into the air and salute Tom, still my best friend and closest rock'n'roll outlaw in the whole cosmos.