Friday, December 18, 2009
Sparks "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us"
I still can't believe this was from 1974.
Ron & Russell Mael were decades ahead of their time.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
She'll Rock Your World...
...and then do your hair.
Carletta Sue Kay
Weds, Dec. 16th 9pm
Hemlock Tavern
with Brian Glaze & The Night Shift, and Dreamdate.
Carletta Sue Kay
Weds, Dec. 16th 9pm
Hemlock Tavern
with Brian Glaze & The Night Shift, and Dreamdate.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The King Is Dead
Michael Jackson is dead.
What. The. Fuck.
Even though for more than a decade his life has been the source of endless cultural ridicule, this is not the time to focus on the plastic surgeries, the skin whitening, the numerous accusations of pedophilia, the baby-dangling, or even Bubbles the chimp...
This is the man who gave the world "Thriller", bitches...
Whether you loved him or loathed him, anyone who grew up and came of age in the period of time when he truly was "The King of Pop" simply cannot deny the fact that he singlehandedly changed the face of music forever.
The world has lost one of the most gifted, if not the most truly bizarre performers we will ever know...
R.I.P.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Carletta Sue Kay
Carletta Sue Kay
Victor Krummenacher
Pinky Swear
Thursday, June 25th 9pm
Eagle Tavern SF
398 12th Street @ Harrison
I'm finally making my official debut with CSK...
So come marvel at my "Chop Sticks"-style piano playing,
cry into your cocktail, and wish Doug Hilsinger
a happy birthday.
Oh yeah, and it's Gay Pride this weekend...
Yay and things.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thanks For Playing...
"Famed producer and hair farmer Phil Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life in an L.A. court today, according to KTLA. Spector was found guilty of second-degree murder and "personal use of a gun" in the killing of actress Lana Clarkson (perhaps you know her as Mrs. Vargas in Fast Times At Ridgemont High). In spite of pretty overwhelming evidence, Spector maintains his innocence. The hair says otherwise, though, doesn't it?"
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Battle Of The Belge
Last week I ran into my old bandmate Tom, and we were discussing the upcoming Mon Cousin Belge show on May 28th at the Eagle. He was talking about the new band members and how things are going with rehearsals thus far, as they'd only just started working on getting the songs back into shape.
He then surprised me by saying how much everyone missed my vocals, and that they would love it if I would join them again on stage for a few songs. Well I didn't even have to think about it, I said yes immediately. I've really missed playing with them, and even though the line-up has changed considerably over the last couple of years, the spirit seems to have remained in tact. That's one of the most remarkable things about being in a band, where a group of individuals create something together which in turn becomes bigger than the sum of its parts.
Either way I'm really excited to share a stage with them again, and I hope to see you all there...
Mon Cousin Belge
Hard Place
Brian Glaze & The Night Shift
The Passionistas
Thursday, May 28th 9pm
SF Eagle
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Lukestar "White Shade"
It's been awhile since I've completely geeked-out on a new band, simply because all too often the new music that I hear lately just sounds like everything else out there, and it all starts to acquire this homogenized sameness to my ears, but this one has definitely done the trick.
And really, what is not to love about a band whose singer has the voice of a Vienna Boys Choir Castrato AND looks like John Wayne Gacy?
They are Lukestar from Oslo, Norway. Please, love them...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Randall James Jerred 1954-2009
No one really knows why we have the kinds of dreams we have, only that we have them, and that they're obviously acting at the behest of our subconscious.
I had a dream 2 weeks ago about my first boyfriend Randy. I don't remember the dream in specifics, only that he featured prominently.
Suffice to say, the residual emotional effects of this dream were to stay with me long enough to the point where I found myself doing a Google search on his name yesterday while I was at work. I wasn't exactly sure what I was expecting to find, but I certainly wasn't expecting to find what I did.
I found his obituary.
More unexpected still was the fact that he died January 15, 2009, less than a month ago.
He was homeless and had been living under a freeway overpass in Spokane, Washington, and he appeared to have died due to complications related to frostbite. He was 54 years old.
I still can't describe exactly what I was feeling when I first read this information. To be honest, it has been a little more than 24 hours since I first learned of his passing, and I'm still a little numb. Up until yesterday, I was of the opinion that I could have lived the rest of my life without ever seeing or hearing from him again and I would have been totally fine with that.
In short, the only remaining feelings I had for him were anger and sadness. And yet suddenly there I was, sitting there thinking about him again, and yet all I could remember were nothing but good memories, such that they were.
It was exactly 20 years ago. I was 19 years old and had just moved into my first apartment in Seattle when I first met Randy, who was 34 at the time. It was 1989, but I remember it like it was yesterday, as cliched as that sounds. We met at Neighbors, a well-known gay dance club, and I remember seeing him standing around all by himself this one particular night.
Normally I would've been with my usual group of friends when I went out dancing, but I was by myself that night as well. I distinctly remember walking up to him with a confidence that was unusual for me, saying something to the effect of, "I see you're all by yourself... me too. Why don't we stand around by ourselves together?"
It was the corniest thing I think I have ever said, but whatever, it must have worked, because within an hour I was going home with him.
I should preface this by stating that at the time I was in throes of a pretty nasty crystal meth habit. Randy, on the other hand, was in recovery, and he had been clean and sober for a few years when we met. I must have scared him off because I didn't hear from him after that first night we spent together, but to be fair, I couldn't really blame him. I was just this tweaker club kid from a hick-town in the big city, and he was an adult trying to get his shit together.
It would be a year before I would see Randy again, only this time it was in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting when I was trying to get off drugs myself.
To make a long story short, we reconnected and began to spend a lot of time together, slowly getting to know each other. To this day I can't say for sure what he was looking for, if anything, but I know that I fell in love with him fairly quickly. He was the first boyfriend I ever said "I love you" to, and he was the first boyfriend who ever said it to me.
Within the year we had moved in together, much to the horror of my parents, who were shocked at the 14-year age difference, let alone the fact that I was moving in with another man with whom I was romantically involved. Likewise, my friends thought I was nuts, but I didn't care. I was in love and that was all that mattered as far as I was concerned.
Randy and I were together from 1990 to 1995, and our relationship was far from perfect. In fact, looking back, I can say with certainty that our relationship was pretty fucked up. For my part, I was far too immature, emotionally needy and insecure, whereas he was older and more experienced.
Randy had been in school when we started dating, working towards his masters degree in psychology. His dream was to become a drug and alcohol counselor, hoping to help people through the struggles of addiction and guide them on the road to recovery. He felt that through his own experiences he could provide help to those who wanted it and needed it.
He graduated from Seattle University in 1991, which was when I first met his father and step-mother, who had come all the way out from Spokane to see him receive his diploma. I remember how awkward it was for all of them, as there was still a lot of animosity between Randy and his father. But they were able to put aside their differences long enough to share this moment together as a family, and I remember feeling honored to have been included, as awkward as it was for me as well.
That following Thanksgiving I accompanied Randy on a visit back to Spokane to spend the holiday with his family, which he hadn't done is some years. I know that he and his father were trying to make amends, and that their mutual estrangement over the years had affected the relationships he had with his siblings.
We stayed with his youngest brother Kevin and his wife Karen. They had just had their first child together, and I remember Kevin really wanting to rekindle his relationship with Randy during our short stay with them. They treated me as a member of their family and were wonderful people. I also met Randy's next younger brother Doug and his wife Debby, and they were just as inclusive and welcoming to me, as was every other member of their extended family throughout that whole weekend.
I never knew the ins and outs of their family history, I only have my impressions from what Randy told me over the years, and from my own experience for the brief time that I was with them. But it was clear to me that there was severe emotional trauma that affected all of them, and that they struggled with it ever day of their lives.
Randy eventually went to work as a counselor at Stonewall Recovery Services, which was a well-respected Gay & Lesbian outpatient alcohol and drug treatment clinic in Seattle. I remember how proud I felt that the dream he had worked so hard to achieve had finally come true for him.
Randy was well liked and respected by all who worked with him and by the people he counseled on a daily basis. And after a few years, he took the next big step and began his own private practice out of our home in his free time.
To me, at the time, Randy embodied the kind of strength and resolve that I could only aspire to. Here was someone who had overcome his own struggles and trials in life, learned from them, and used that experience to not only help better his own life, but the lives of others as well. While I saw myself as just a dumb musician, playing in a rock band and working in a seemingly endless succession of coffee shops, trying in vain to fulfill my own dreams.
Next to Randy, I always felt slightly petty and insignificant, and for a time I placed him on a pretty big pedestal. But as we all know, when you put someone up on a pedestal, all they can do is fall. And maybe it was because I was so young and immature, but I didn't realize that Randy was already falling, and by then it was too late.
I don't know when he started drinking again exactly, but I know it didn't take long for me to figure it out. He became a different person almost overnight, like Jekyll and Hyde. The mild-mannered and loving demeanor became openly hostile and abusive. Suddenly I found myself in a relationship with a total stranger who scared the living shit out of me.
For months I refused to admit what was happening, and yet there it was right in front of me every time I opened my eyes. Until one night, when an argument we were having escalated to the point where I snapped and confronted him outright about his drinking, which he immediately denied. But the shock of discovery on his face was confirmation enough for me.
I begged him to get help, to do something, anything. I told him I would do anything I could to help him, and I meant it. But he just laughed at me, telling me that I wasn't strong enough to even help myself, and that without him I would be nowhere. I was so hurt and angry at him for saying that to me, but looking back now, I have to admit that he was right in a way.
I was far too young to grasp the reality of the situation, and I had never felt more helpless in my entire life. Every day he slipped further and further away from me, and all he did when he wasn't passed out was skulk around the house yelling at me.
It wasn't long before he lost his job and was stripped of his license to practice psychotherapy in the state of Washington. He depleted our joint bank account, maxed-out 2 credit cards and then filed for bankruptcy behind my back without even telling me.
Finally, on January 5, 1995, he stumbled in the door reeking of booze, stormed around the apartment knocking things over, screaming obscenities at me, and then threw me up against the wall as hard as he could. I was terrified and convinced that he was going to kill me, so I left as fast as I could and went to stay at a friend's house.
A few days later I went back to the apartment and collected what I could as fast as I could and I left. That was it. Our relationship was over. I knew I couldn't do anything to help Randy if he wasn't first willing to help himself. I could only do what I had to do for myself, and for me, that meant getting out while I still could.
In the aftermath, I was left with no money, no place to live, and I had the bank threatening me with legal action over a $45,000.00 debt that Randy had stuck me with, which would take me over 10 years to clear off of my credit history.
Over the next 2 years I would run into him a handful of times, and he was always staggeringly drunk. He called me on the phone out of the blue one night, drunk again, alternately apologizing for destroying our relationship and cursing me for walking away. I told him that it would be best if he never contacted me again. That was the last time I ever spoke to him.
I moved to San Francisco in 1997, and in the years since that time I heard from friends back in Seattle occasionally that they had seen Randy out and about, and how horrible he looked, and how drunk he was. I always felt conflicted whenever I would hear this information. I was still angry with him, but at the same time there was always a part of me, however small, that held out hope that he would get his shit together at some point for his own sake.
And then the Randy sightings just sort of stopped.
A few years ago I heard from someone that they had heard from someone that he had moved back to Spokane or something. At one point there were a few stories going around about him having been arrested, and although I assumed it was probably drug and/or alcohol-related, I never really knew the whole story, but I also didn't really much care anymore either. He had been out of my life for so long by that point that he seemed almost like a vague character from a film I'd seen a long time ago. I felt absolutely nothing for him except fleeting shivers of that old anger that still remained after all those years.
So when I read about his passing yesterday, I found the name of the funeral home that had run his obituary and called them. I asked the director if he could forward my name and contact information onto Randy's family should they wish to get in touch with me.
I also found the name of a homeless shelter in Spokane that he had apparently stayed at very recently. I called them and spoke with a volunteer named Ed, who told me he remembered Randy, but only vaguely. It seemed that he kept to himself and never caused trouble for anyone, but he was also not a regular, only showing up occasionally for a meal or a shower.
He told me that Randy had developed gangrene in some of his extremities due to frostbite from living on the streets, and that coupled with his failing liver due to years of alcohol abuse, he experienced massive organ failure and died from septicemia. Ed told me that, sadly, Randy's case was not unique at all. Many homeless people use their facilities that they never know anything about except maybe their names. They die on the streets anonymously, with no family or friends or loved-ones to claim them.
When I got home later that evening, I received a call from Randy's sister-in-law Debby, who had apparently been contacted by the funeral home director that I had spoken with earlier. Our converstation was actually very brief, but it was also totally heartbreaking.
She told me that Randy had apparently been back in Spokane for years, and that no one in their family had been aware of that, let alone that he was homeless and living on the streets. She said they received a call from the hospital stating that Randy was there, and they had had a difficult time trying to locate any family members. He was dying, and the hospital told them that if they wanted to say goodbye to him, they had better do it now.
Debby said that her husband Doug, Randy's brother, went to the hospital and was able to see him before he died. She also said that Randy had not even been aware of the fact that his youngest brother Kevin had died tragically in 2004, followed by their father's death in 2007. She told me the last time they had heard from Randy had been several years before when he had called them out of the blue asking for money, which they didn't give him for obvious reasons.
I thanked her for calling, and I offered my condolences to her and to Doug and the rest of their family for all they had been through. I told her to contact me if there was anything I could do for them, even though I know that was a completely hollow gesture. What could I possibly do for them? I felt like a bit of a hypocrite for even saying that, but still, I felt I had to say something.
I guess the hardest part for me to wrap my brain around is the fact that Randy had at one time been someone who had everything, and subsequently lost it all, living out his last few years broken and utterly alone, suffering from such a horrific disease.
This could have happened to anyone, myself included. I feel more than fortunate and appreciative of the things in my life that I do have, such as the love of someone in my life today who truly loves and cherishes and respects me and would do anything in the world for me.
Nobody deserves to die alone, anonymous and unremembered. No matter what they may have done or who they may have been in their life. And even though, as I stated earlier, I still held onto the anger and regret left over from my relationship with Randy from all those years ago, all of it has completely evaporated now. None of it matters anymore. He was someone who was the most important person in the world to me at one time. And nothing, not even all the anger and hurt that followed, can ever change that fact.
And as I said before, now I can think of nothing but the good times that he and I had together, for however brief a time it was. Randy Jerred was a human being full of hopes and dreams and love and flaws and regret. This disease of addiction which finally claimed him was not who he was. And if I have come away with nothing else, it is the fact that he deserves to be remembered as such.
I still don't know why I had that dream about him 2 weeks ago, let alone what the dream was about, but maybe somehow, somewhere, he was reaching out to me one last time. And that is a feeling I don't think I will ever be able to shake.
I hope you are finally at peace, Randy.
I had a dream 2 weeks ago about my first boyfriend Randy. I don't remember the dream in specifics, only that he featured prominently.
Suffice to say, the residual emotional effects of this dream were to stay with me long enough to the point where I found myself doing a Google search on his name yesterday while I was at work. I wasn't exactly sure what I was expecting to find, but I certainly wasn't expecting to find what I did.
I found his obituary.
More unexpected still was the fact that he died January 15, 2009, less than a month ago.
He was homeless and had been living under a freeway overpass in Spokane, Washington, and he appeared to have died due to complications related to frostbite. He was 54 years old.
I still can't describe exactly what I was feeling when I first read this information. To be honest, it has been a little more than 24 hours since I first learned of his passing, and I'm still a little numb. Up until yesterday, I was of the opinion that I could have lived the rest of my life without ever seeing or hearing from him again and I would have been totally fine with that.
In short, the only remaining feelings I had for him were anger and sadness. And yet suddenly there I was, sitting there thinking about him again, and yet all I could remember were nothing but good memories, such that they were.
It was exactly 20 years ago. I was 19 years old and had just moved into my first apartment in Seattle when I first met Randy, who was 34 at the time. It was 1989, but I remember it like it was yesterday, as cliched as that sounds. We met at Neighbors, a well-known gay dance club, and I remember seeing him standing around all by himself this one particular night.
Normally I would've been with my usual group of friends when I went out dancing, but I was by myself that night as well. I distinctly remember walking up to him with a confidence that was unusual for me, saying something to the effect of, "I see you're all by yourself... me too. Why don't we stand around by ourselves together?"
It was the corniest thing I think I have ever said, but whatever, it must have worked, because within an hour I was going home with him.
I should preface this by stating that at the time I was in throes of a pretty nasty crystal meth habit. Randy, on the other hand, was in recovery, and he had been clean and sober for a few years when we met. I must have scared him off because I didn't hear from him after that first night we spent together, but to be fair, I couldn't really blame him. I was just this tweaker club kid from a hick-town in the big city, and he was an adult trying to get his shit together.
It would be a year before I would see Randy again, only this time it was in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting when I was trying to get off drugs myself.
To make a long story short, we reconnected and began to spend a lot of time together, slowly getting to know each other. To this day I can't say for sure what he was looking for, if anything, but I know that I fell in love with him fairly quickly. He was the first boyfriend I ever said "I love you" to, and he was the first boyfriend who ever said it to me.
Within the year we had moved in together, much to the horror of my parents, who were shocked at the 14-year age difference, let alone the fact that I was moving in with another man with whom I was romantically involved. Likewise, my friends thought I was nuts, but I didn't care. I was in love and that was all that mattered as far as I was concerned.
Randy and I were together from 1990 to 1995, and our relationship was far from perfect. In fact, looking back, I can say with certainty that our relationship was pretty fucked up. For my part, I was far too immature, emotionally needy and insecure, whereas he was older and more experienced.
Randy had been in school when we started dating, working towards his masters degree in psychology. His dream was to become a drug and alcohol counselor, hoping to help people through the struggles of addiction and guide them on the road to recovery. He felt that through his own experiences he could provide help to those who wanted it and needed it.
He graduated from Seattle University in 1991, which was when I first met his father and step-mother, who had come all the way out from Spokane to see him receive his diploma. I remember how awkward it was for all of them, as there was still a lot of animosity between Randy and his father. But they were able to put aside their differences long enough to share this moment together as a family, and I remember feeling honored to have been included, as awkward as it was for me as well.
That following Thanksgiving I accompanied Randy on a visit back to Spokane to spend the holiday with his family, which he hadn't done is some years. I know that he and his father were trying to make amends, and that their mutual estrangement over the years had affected the relationships he had with his siblings.
We stayed with his youngest brother Kevin and his wife Karen. They had just had their first child together, and I remember Kevin really wanting to rekindle his relationship with Randy during our short stay with them. They treated me as a member of their family and were wonderful people. I also met Randy's next younger brother Doug and his wife Debby, and they were just as inclusive and welcoming to me, as was every other member of their extended family throughout that whole weekend.
I never knew the ins and outs of their family history, I only have my impressions from what Randy told me over the years, and from my own experience for the brief time that I was with them. But it was clear to me that there was severe emotional trauma that affected all of them, and that they struggled with it ever day of their lives.
Randy eventually went to work as a counselor at Stonewall Recovery Services, which was a well-respected Gay & Lesbian outpatient alcohol and drug treatment clinic in Seattle. I remember how proud I felt that the dream he had worked so hard to achieve had finally come true for him.
Randy was well liked and respected by all who worked with him and by the people he counseled on a daily basis. And after a few years, he took the next big step and began his own private practice out of our home in his free time.
To me, at the time, Randy embodied the kind of strength and resolve that I could only aspire to. Here was someone who had overcome his own struggles and trials in life, learned from them, and used that experience to not only help better his own life, but the lives of others as well. While I saw myself as just a dumb musician, playing in a rock band and working in a seemingly endless succession of coffee shops, trying in vain to fulfill my own dreams.
Next to Randy, I always felt slightly petty and insignificant, and for a time I placed him on a pretty big pedestal. But as we all know, when you put someone up on a pedestal, all they can do is fall. And maybe it was because I was so young and immature, but I didn't realize that Randy was already falling, and by then it was too late.
I don't know when he started drinking again exactly, but I know it didn't take long for me to figure it out. He became a different person almost overnight, like Jekyll and Hyde. The mild-mannered and loving demeanor became openly hostile and abusive. Suddenly I found myself in a relationship with a total stranger who scared the living shit out of me.
For months I refused to admit what was happening, and yet there it was right in front of me every time I opened my eyes. Until one night, when an argument we were having escalated to the point where I snapped and confronted him outright about his drinking, which he immediately denied. But the shock of discovery on his face was confirmation enough for me.
I begged him to get help, to do something, anything. I told him I would do anything I could to help him, and I meant it. But he just laughed at me, telling me that I wasn't strong enough to even help myself, and that without him I would be nowhere. I was so hurt and angry at him for saying that to me, but looking back now, I have to admit that he was right in a way.
I was far too young to grasp the reality of the situation, and I had never felt more helpless in my entire life. Every day he slipped further and further away from me, and all he did when he wasn't passed out was skulk around the house yelling at me.
It wasn't long before he lost his job and was stripped of his license to practice psychotherapy in the state of Washington. He depleted our joint bank account, maxed-out 2 credit cards and then filed for bankruptcy behind my back without even telling me.
Finally, on January 5, 1995, he stumbled in the door reeking of booze, stormed around the apartment knocking things over, screaming obscenities at me, and then threw me up against the wall as hard as he could. I was terrified and convinced that he was going to kill me, so I left as fast as I could and went to stay at a friend's house.
A few days later I went back to the apartment and collected what I could as fast as I could and I left. That was it. Our relationship was over. I knew I couldn't do anything to help Randy if he wasn't first willing to help himself. I could only do what I had to do for myself, and for me, that meant getting out while I still could.
In the aftermath, I was left with no money, no place to live, and I had the bank threatening me with legal action over a $45,000.00 debt that Randy had stuck me with, which would take me over 10 years to clear off of my credit history.
Over the next 2 years I would run into him a handful of times, and he was always staggeringly drunk. He called me on the phone out of the blue one night, drunk again, alternately apologizing for destroying our relationship and cursing me for walking away. I told him that it would be best if he never contacted me again. That was the last time I ever spoke to him.
I moved to San Francisco in 1997, and in the years since that time I heard from friends back in Seattle occasionally that they had seen Randy out and about, and how horrible he looked, and how drunk he was. I always felt conflicted whenever I would hear this information. I was still angry with him, but at the same time there was always a part of me, however small, that held out hope that he would get his shit together at some point for his own sake.
And then the Randy sightings just sort of stopped.
A few years ago I heard from someone that they had heard from someone that he had moved back to Spokane or something. At one point there were a few stories going around about him having been arrested, and although I assumed it was probably drug and/or alcohol-related, I never really knew the whole story, but I also didn't really much care anymore either. He had been out of my life for so long by that point that he seemed almost like a vague character from a film I'd seen a long time ago. I felt absolutely nothing for him except fleeting shivers of that old anger that still remained after all those years.
So when I read about his passing yesterday, I found the name of the funeral home that had run his obituary and called them. I asked the director if he could forward my name and contact information onto Randy's family should they wish to get in touch with me.
I also found the name of a homeless shelter in Spokane that he had apparently stayed at very recently. I called them and spoke with a volunteer named Ed, who told me he remembered Randy, but only vaguely. It seemed that he kept to himself and never caused trouble for anyone, but he was also not a regular, only showing up occasionally for a meal or a shower.
He told me that Randy had developed gangrene in some of his extremities due to frostbite from living on the streets, and that coupled with his failing liver due to years of alcohol abuse, he experienced massive organ failure and died from septicemia. Ed told me that, sadly, Randy's case was not unique at all. Many homeless people use their facilities that they never know anything about except maybe their names. They die on the streets anonymously, with no family or friends or loved-ones to claim them.
When I got home later that evening, I received a call from Randy's sister-in-law Debby, who had apparently been contacted by the funeral home director that I had spoken with earlier. Our converstation was actually very brief, but it was also totally heartbreaking.
She told me that Randy had apparently been back in Spokane for years, and that no one in their family had been aware of that, let alone that he was homeless and living on the streets. She said they received a call from the hospital stating that Randy was there, and they had had a difficult time trying to locate any family members. He was dying, and the hospital told them that if they wanted to say goodbye to him, they had better do it now.
Debby said that her husband Doug, Randy's brother, went to the hospital and was able to see him before he died. She also said that Randy had not even been aware of the fact that his youngest brother Kevin had died tragically in 2004, followed by their father's death in 2007. She told me the last time they had heard from Randy had been several years before when he had called them out of the blue asking for money, which they didn't give him for obvious reasons.
I thanked her for calling, and I offered my condolences to her and to Doug and the rest of their family for all they had been through. I told her to contact me if there was anything I could do for them, even though I know that was a completely hollow gesture. What could I possibly do for them? I felt like a bit of a hypocrite for even saying that, but still, I felt I had to say something.
I guess the hardest part for me to wrap my brain around is the fact that Randy had at one time been someone who had everything, and subsequently lost it all, living out his last few years broken and utterly alone, suffering from such a horrific disease.
This could have happened to anyone, myself included. I feel more than fortunate and appreciative of the things in my life that I do have, such as the love of someone in my life today who truly loves and cherishes and respects me and would do anything in the world for me.
Nobody deserves to die alone, anonymous and unremembered. No matter what they may have done or who they may have been in their life. And even though, as I stated earlier, I still held onto the anger and regret left over from my relationship with Randy from all those years ago, all of it has completely evaporated now. None of it matters anymore. He was someone who was the most important person in the world to me at one time. And nothing, not even all the anger and hurt that followed, can ever change that fact.
And as I said before, now I can think of nothing but the good times that he and I had together, for however brief a time it was. Randy Jerred was a human being full of hopes and dreams and love and flaws and regret. This disease of addiction which finally claimed him was not who he was. And if I have come away with nothing else, it is the fact that he deserves to be remembered as such.
I still don't know why I had that dream about him 2 weeks ago, let alone what the dream was about, but maybe somehow, somewhere, he was reaching out to me one last time. And that is a feeling I don't think I will ever be able to shake.
I hope you are finally at peace, Randy.
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