Disco Volante

In '96 or '97 (I can't remember when for sure), I was on college radio. I was the Music Director at WSGR-FM, 'The Bluewater's ONLY Alternative'. This meant that every day, I would come into the office, and there would be piles of new mail and new CDs to sort through. So much of it was obvious: obvious that it would go in the library, or obvious that it would go in the trash, or obvious that I'd have to listen to it first.

I remember one day, I opened up a bubble-wrap pack and found the newest Mr. Bungle CD. It was their second album, "Disco Volante." I liked the first one, but it was goofy circus music, more or less. Also relatively harmless lyrically. But, knowing Mike Patton, I had to listen to this one to find the 'do not play' songs. Part of my job was to label all library CDs pertaining to what songs were recommended, what songs not to play because of language, artist, title, and what style of music.

There was a track towards the middle called "Everyone I Went To High School With Is Dead." Considering how arrhythmic and odd the songs on this disc were, this one was actually somewhat playable. So it became one of the recommended songs, and quickly went into high rotation in my own weekly four hour show.

I liked the song because I was already out of high school for a couple years, and I really didn't like a lot of the people I had to share those four years with. There were the bullying types, the popular kids, the bitch clique, typical annoyances for a quiet untreated ADD-stricken kid with no interest in sports. But I didn't actually want them to be dead.

Last Friday, I went to a memorial/visitation for a girl I went to high school with. She was 29, like me. Her cause of death was a car accident, and no, she wasn't drinking, it was an accident, plain and simple. I didn't know her well, but she is someone who I knew and who shared a big growth experience with me: high school. She was one of the 'popular' girls, so its not like I ever talked to her, but I still felt like I should go to the visitation. Mostly because my friend who lives down here actually did know this girl. I was there for support.

I just found out today that a guy I went to high school with killed himself two weeks ago. Apparently, the service already happened, so I won't be heading north for that one.

Back in '94 or '95, I think, another guy I went to high school with passed away after a bad car accident. I remember going to the visitation. That was my first one. There were a few family funerals from the recent past (at that point in my life) that I had refused to attend. My feelings on death and departing were all over the place, but I knew for sure that I didn't want to go to those family funerals. I felt cold and sterile about it. But that showing was different...this was someone I actually knew. Someone who was the same age as me. Maybe I didn't know his family, and we weren't best friends, but their was still a connection. I wanted so badly to take an existentialist or Buddhist view of the whole thing, but I couldn't do it. It was easier with the family funerals because they were for people I barely knew.

Add onto these four the passing of several good friends who I did not go to high school with: six good people lost in the past five years. Brad will never make a big success of his artistic furniture company, Scott will never be seen wandering Hamtramck late at night in his bowler hat and 'Clockwork Orange' t-shirt, Tim will never transcend time and space to build a time machine (we all know he had it in him), Tiffany's big blue eyes will never light up a room again, Jake will never play with his band Moloko Plus ever again, and Larry will never get to tour Europe singin' with the Dirtys while on tour with the New Bomb Turks and Turbonegro ever again.

They all live on for these and many more reasons, but they never had a chance to do it all. Why not?