GRIEF covers me like a blanket

I launched this blog in Jan 2008, months after the sudden death of my friend Michael Z. For weeks I was feeling so awful that I hadn't been there for him or around after he died -- until he came to me in a dream and told me to get over it. He even laughed at me. Fucker. Even in death he was spot on and sometimes a dick. 

This week another train hit me. So hard I'm in pieces. G is gone. I got the call on a Thursday afternoon. Victim of a homicide, those words keep ringing in my ears. It's been a week and I've been crying every day. Multiple times a day. I'm devastated. Heartbroken. Crushed. Shocked, and utterly confused. What? How? Why??

I met G, aka the Janitor, in 1999 or so. He took me shopping for my first mp3 player at the now-shuttered Circuit City. I nursed him while he struggled with an ulcer and had to hide the coffee from him when he kept insisting that it didn't bother his stomach.

I called in a favor with an old gambling buddy and got a bunch of us free rooms in Las Vegas for March Madness. There we were, me and 6 of his college buddies. I can't tell you how much love went down that wild weekend but I did witness a drunken Janitor comfort a very drunk Villanueva junior who was sobbing madly, heartbroken that his team was shut out after the 3rd round. Tears of grief on all sides. We all took turns singing karaoke on stage in the back room of the Westward Ho while the rest of us gambled. The brotherhood was sealed in my heart forever.

We rebounded with a visit to his parents and a cab ride to watch his brother's band play. It was there in that dark bar we confessed our forever love for each other and swore eternal devotion - in whatever form that would take.

I drove an hour to see him spin tunes at the 540 Club on multiple occasions, and he was the one I called when my sister went into labor. He was the one who I entrusted with picking up my 8-year-old daughter from school and taking her to dinner before driving her across the bridge to meet me at UCSF. My understanding was that the conversation revolved primarily around spiders.

I took him to see Wicked and made him wait outside afterwards to get Patty Duke's autograph -- because of course. And he took me to see loads of cool bands and to secret bar hangouts, too numerous to mention. Sometimes with our posse, other times just us. Sometimes we laughed and talked sports. Other times we hotly debated issues, or more seriously, his "why" of life. 

His birthday was just days before my daughter's so we sometimes combined birthday dinners. My favorite was the time the three of us went to Kirala and we brought him 10 presents to open at the sushi bar, including a pencil case from Japantown and a package of seaweed, both of which were personally selected by my girl just for him. He was strangely speechless so I made him order another bottle of sake.

I offered to bring him milkshakes when his jaw was wired shut, and he sometimes sent me photos of his injuries -- which were surprisingly numerous. I guess we could say he pushed his boundaries. A lot.

He showed up at a couple of gigs where my band played -- but the dark times sometimes took him somewhere else and he would disappear. We talked about that but he would just brush it off. It was behind him and it didn't matter. But as anyone who knows me is aware, I don't let things just go. What are you doing with your life? What's going on?? You are amazing and smart and clever and oh so handsome, I would say. That's not me, he would respond.

At the 540 Club, San Francisco

I showed up that last night at 540 before his move to Portland. I understood why -- he had to shake it up, start fresh, regroup. And so did I, but on most visits back to SF I made that hour drive from the Shire and we stole what time we could. I would say hi, catch up a bit, and leave him with his adoring bar fans. 

I watched him put a new life together up north and we talked now and then, and I popped in randomly when he came back to the Bay. I went up to Portland one summer and we caught Guided by Voices and he took me to get "the best fried chicken on the West Coast." That's real love right there... because he knew I loved fried chicken.

During one conversation, I mentioned that John Sayles' agent had read one of my scripts and told me to write a romantic comedy. "Your dialogue is good," she said. "Plus rom-coms are popular and cheap to produce." The Janitor pondered this one. What could you write about? My response: Everyone wants to meet their soul mate, but what if that person was from the ancient Egyptian times or something. Then you're screwed. His response: Well, there's an app for that. 

I spent the next year twisting his arm to persuade him to write it with me. Come on, you have a degree in film. You have a gift with words. Write it with me. I'll do the heavy lifting. Then I moved to LA and told him it was time.

With G at the record store, Vinyl Resting Place 
Portland, OR - Jan 2018

No, he kept saying NO. I got the worst grade in screenwriting class, he said. (Really, that was his excuse. So lame.) Then finally he relented. So I flew to Portland and we spent 4 days together. We bought massive amounts of food and drank gallons of tea and sat there at his table hammering out this sweet little story about finding love, but really about finding it in oneself. The metaphor was priceless. And we spent hours talking about love and truth and people, about his fears, music, his friends who disappointed him, and his family. Up all night until 4, and doing it again the next night and the next night. We went out with his Portland friends, stopped for drinks at the Fixin To, sang a karaoke duet (Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, oh yes we did), and shopped for records. I begged him to find me the Kansas LP, Point of Know Return. It was an intimacy 20 years in the making, especially when you ask a music geek to find you a Kansas album.

I flew back home to LA with our scrappy 10-page outline/film treatment and he threw himself back into his work and disappeared again. But now I pushed harder, and when I sent him the final script, we had a real heart to heart about life and goals and work. "It's your job not a prison sentence" -- He came down to visit last summer, finally, where we heard 10 actors perform our story in a staged reading. It was gold, and we had a blast hiking the San Pedro cliffs, seeing the band Calexico, wandering in my hometown of Long Beach, and seeing some 540 friends who were also in town. The script needed refining and that was going to be our next session.

The Janitor in the back, with me and our 10 generous actors who performed our script - Los Angeles, June 2018

Our last conversation was about hitting Las Vegas for March Madness -- days before he left us -- and I can't tell you how much I regret saying no. In my defense my car had been vandalized twice and I lost my job, but perhaps those are the perfect times to say yes... I'll have to remember that one and take it with me. But my other plan was in motion. I was going to sell my house and buy one in Portland for both of us. Could that work? Do you like that plan? And that's where we left it... when I got the call I was touring my house with the realtor. It goes on the market April 29, and I know now that I will never move to Portland.

Since his death - his senseless and awful murder - so many people have celebrated him on his FB page. Post after post of photos and memories and how much people appreciated his kind heart, his quick wit, and his superlative mind, and all the beautiful ways he made them feel. That was his gift, this I know, to be present and compassionate. What an amazing superpower. He gave so much more to others than he gave to himself, and I'm so incredibly grateful that people are sharing so much love, and even more honored that I got to meet so many of these people from all these parts of his life. 

But our story wasn't done -- HE wasn't done -- and I am deeply, gut-wrenchingly sad. I know that he was in the best place he'd been in his life in a long time. A great social circle, a new apartment, a cat he loved, and a stable job that respected his input and his brain. Life isn't often fair. In the end we must accept what is, and so I will take our little story and produce it eventually. That's a real legacy and it's my responsibility to nurture it. There are no words of wisdom I can share here nor any empty platitudes. My life will never be the same without him in it. When I finally get to make that film I know it will be glorious and heartbreaking. Dammit, he should be here to see it come alive.

We are all on this same journey together. Share whatever love and time and kindness that you have because it's all fleeting. Grab it and take it. 

#TheJanitorShouldBeHere