Friends ’til The End
Speaking of music…
I was Googling old friends and acquaintances the other day (what, like you’ve never done it?) and I found one of my old high school buddies. There were four of us who ran together back then: me, Alex, James, and Rick. (James moved away during our senior year, so me, Alex and Rick were really the core group.) I remember we used to come up with goofy group nicknames for ourselves — as the Blues Brothers we were Jake (me), Elwood (Rick) and Manny (the brother we invented for Alex); inspired by Battlestar Galactica we were Starbuck, Boomer and Skylar (BG fangeeks, please ignore the fact that Starbuck was a female character and that there was no Skylar); during our “Flavin” phase (take the first syllable of your name and and “boflavin” to the end) we were Riboflavin, Jimboflavin, Alboflavin and, uh, Chuboflavin (I was not a fan of the Flavin thing). We had a corner of the student parking lot staked out for ourselves and used to spray-paint our noms de jour on “our” spaces. We were pretty much inseparable. Until graduation. That very day we scattered to the wind.
I looked Alex up about 10 years ago, found him living in San Francisco, and went up there for a weekend visit. When we said our goodbyes we swore to keep in touch — but we didn’t. James called me out of the blue about two years ago and we talked on the phone for about an hour and swore we’d keep in touch — but we didn’t. Rick looked me up a few months later via classmates.com and it turned out he lives in Dallas and I was flying there for my job every two weeks, so we got together for dinner and swore to keep in touch — but we didn’t. Like I said in my bio, I’m not very good at being friends — or friendly, for that matter.
So years have gone by since I’ve seen or spoken with any of these guys. I was the only one of the group at both our 10 and 20 year high school reunions. The Flavin Brothers are ancient history. That’s okay, I’m fine with that, but I still wonder about them sometime. So I Googled. And I found Alex.
In high school he was just starting to play the bass and wanting to be a musician. Ten years ago he was doing the struggling musician thing up in San Francisco. Now he’s in a band called Laughingstock, they’re recording and releasing CDs, and they’re really good! He has some samples on his web page, so I downloaded them and I love them. I wondered at first if I liked the songs because I wanted to like them, but I’ve had them stuck in my head for three days and playing in my mental mp3 player during my rides to and from work, so it’s because they’re good. I like them so much I want to write a movie so I can use them in the soundtrack.
I emailed him through the contact link on his band’s page but I haven’t heard back. Maybe I won’t. Probably I won’t. That’s okay, I might not answer if it were him writing me. I just like knowing that he’s still making music and doing it well. I don’t know why I feel this way, and frankly it surprises me that I do, but knowing he’s still chasing his dream makes me happy.
Click on the titles to hear Like Texas and River Rushing, my favorites of the songs I downloaded from his page. I’m sure Alex wouldn’t mind me posting it here — any publicity is good publicity, right? — but I’ll take it down if he asks.
But he’d have to write to me to do that, wouldn’t he? Ha.